Remains of S'pore man killed in Taiwan quake in 2024 found
The remains of a Singaporean man who went missing with his wife after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan’s Hualien county in April 2024 have been found.
Mr Sim Hwee Kok and his wife, Ms Neo Siew Choo, were officially declared dead by the Hualien district court at the behest of their family in December 2024 – more than 200 days after they were last seen embarking on the Shakadang Trail in Hualien’s Taroko National Park.
According to Taiwanese news outlet China Times, Mr Sim’s remains were discovered by a farmer on the morning of Jan 11 near Wujianwu, about 1.5km away from the trail entrance.
The farmer had spotted a piece of bone in a riverbed located below an area where a landslide had occurred, and immediately reported it to the authorities.
Local police then followed the farmer back to the scene to investigate.
As the trail had been badly damaged by the earthquake, it took nearly four hours before the police and forensic team successfully retrieved the bone.
A visual assessment deduced that the bone was likely part of a hip, China Times reported.
The bone was subsequently tested against DNA samples previously collected from the couple’s son, who had travelled to Taiwan after the tragedy.
On Jan 24, test results confirmed the DNA was a match and that the bone indeed belonged to Mr Sim.
Follow-up investigations by the local authorities concluded that the earthquake had led to a large landslide behind the trail’s main water pipe, likely causing Mr Sim’s body to be washed into the river valley.
However, the police have been unable to find any of the couple’s other remains, despite another search around the area where the bone was found.
Mr Sim and Ms Neo’s family members have been informed about these findings by the police and will receive the remains soon, the China Times report said.
The couple, who reportedly also held Australian passports, were last captured on surveillance cameras getting off a bus on April 3 at around 7.20am near the Shakadang Trail, 40 minutes before Taiwan’s biggest earthquake in 25 years struck.
Search-and-rescue personnel from the Hualien fire department conducted multiple searches for the couple but to no avail, with sniffer dogs also given clothes worn by Mr Sim and Ms Neo to pick up their scent.
Their family members attended a religious ceremony with spiritual evocation rites performed on April 14 in 2024, after the search was suspended over safety concerns.
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