The largest earthquake to strike Taiwan in at least 25 years, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, struck the island on Wednesday, killing four, injuring scores, and triggering a tsunami warning that was later canceled for the Philippines and southern Japan.
Around the epicentre, in the mountainous and thinly populated eastern county of Hualien, Taiwan’s authorities said that four people had died and more than fifty had been injured.
According to the fire department, at least 26 buildings have collapsed, with more than half of them occurring in Hualien. Of those that were severely damaged, 22 people were rescued, and just one remains missing.
Television stations in Taiwan played images of buildings in Hualien that were tilted dangerously when an earthquake occurred shortly offshore at approximately 8 a.m. (0000 GMT), just as people were leaving for work and school.
The quake had a depth of 15.5km (9.6 miles), according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration.
“It had a lot of strength. The house seemed to be about to collapse, “said Chang Yu-Lin, a 60-year-old hospital employee in Taipei.
When enormous landslides caused by the tremors ripped down hillsides nearby, video showed rescuers using ladders to lift people out of windows.
The previous tsunami warning was then downgraded to an advisory by Japan’s weather service after multiple small tsunami waves were reported to have reached portions of the southern prefecture of Okinawa. It reported a magnitude of 7.7 for the earthquake.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Seismology Agency warned people living in coastal areas of many provinces to flee to higher ground.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii later stated that there was a risk of damaging waves, although Taiwan did not record any damage as a result of the tsunami warning.
Taipei experienced over 50 aftershocks, with the city government not receiving any major damage and the MRT running soon after the tremor. Taipower reported that over 87,000 households in Taiwan were still without power, and the country’s two nuclear power stations were not affected.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Apple, and Nvidia have evacuated some fabrication plants, and their safety systems are operating normally. The earthquake was the largest to hit the island since 1999, when a 7.6-magnitude tremor killed around 2,400 people and destroyed or damaged 50,000 buildings.
The earthquake registered the second-highest intensity of an “Upper 6” in Hualien County, on the 1–7 intensity scale. The Japan Meteorological Agency says that in an Upper 6 earthquake, most unreinforced concrete-block walls collapse, and people find it impossible to remain standing or move without crawling.
(Reuters)
