TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Evacuation has started of people trapped at a school and a hotel in the mountains of Hualien County for the past four days, reports said Sunday (April 7).

Several roads were blocked by rock falls as a result of the magnitude 7.2 earthquake on Wednesday (April 3). The disaster left 442 people unable to return home, including 309 guests at the Silks Place Taroko Hotel.

Repair crews succeeded in removing rubble from the road linking the Tianxiang area with the entrance to Taroko National Park by Sunday at 8 a.m., allowing staff and guests to leave the hotel. The first group to head out numbered 44 people, with 17 cars and two scooters, per Radio Taiwan International (RTI).

The journey leaving Taroko normally takes 30 minutes, but due to the poor state of the road and the risk of more rockfalls, the vehicles took one hour to reach safety. A separate group of nine people caught in the Indigenous village of Dali in Xiulin Township were airlifted by helicopter.

At a higher elevation, 59 teachers and pupils were isolated at Sipaw Elementary School until Sunday, per CNA. As roads to the eastern side were still blocked, the Hualien County Government sent three buses from Nantou County in the west to pick up 15 teachers and 44 students.

Since the earthquake, rescue services have kept in touch with the school and airdropped supplies. After moving to safety, the teachers and students will board one larger bus and make the journey by Southern Cross-Island Highway to Taitung County and up north along the east coast until they reach home.