"The decree is meant to help rehabilitation and reconstruction by overriding restrictions imposed by current laws," said vice premier Liu Chao-shiuan. Liu added that Taichung and Nantou counties, as well as parts of other central counties, had been declared disaster areas.

The proposed measures still have to be approved by president Lee Teng-hui and the Taiwanese parliament.An estimated 100,000 people have been left homeless by the earthquake, which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale.The death toll has risen to more than 2,100, with more than 8,140 injured. Over six thousand buildings were destroyed.Despite Friday's remarkable rescue of a six-year-old boy - buried alive for 87 hoursin his family's second-storey flat - rescue workers say that finding alive any of the 379 people still listed as missing would be a "miracle"."The search-and-rescue missions have slowed down," said Peng Pai-hsien, a magistrate in Nantou county."We have to concentrate our manpower and resources on rehabilitation and settling the homeless."Meanwhile, further aftershocks continued to rock and further weaken damaged buildings around the epicentre in central Taiwan.

A tremor measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale was recorded on Friday night, one of 60 major shockwaves and more than 6,300 in total since the quake.At Wufeng, one of Taiwan's most historic sites, the Wan-Fu temple surrounding a 100 foot (30m) high golden statue of the Buddha was reduced to ruins."The earthquake was a warning from Buddha that he wants us to do better - or worse will happen," said Master Chang-tai, the temple's senior monk.

Shoddy builders targeted three people have so far been detained on suspicion of causing death throughnegligent building practices, and prosecutors say more arrests are expected. An architect and a building contractor were arrested on Friday in connection with the collapse of a 12-storey block of flats on the outskirts of Taipei, which killed 20 people. Three contractors in the worst affected county of Taichung, where more than 1,000 people were killed, have also been ordered not to leave the country.