NINE KILLED, 900 INJURED IN MOST POWERFUL TAIWAN QUAKE IN 25 YEARS
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Agency Report
A strong earthquake in Taiwan on Wednesday caused damage to dozens of structures, triggered tsunami warnings that reached Japan and the Philippines before being withdrawn, and left at least nine people dead and over 900 injured.
Numerous people were thought to be safe but were inaccessible due to severe landslides caused by the earthquake; many of them were in tunnels that went through the mountains, dividing the island in half from north to south.
Ahead of additional tremors in the coming days, officials indicated that the earthquake was the worst to strike the island in decades.
The earthquake-prone island, which is located close to the meeting point of two tectonic plates, appears to have avoided a big calamity thanks to strict building controls and widespread public disaster awareness.
“We were very lucky,” said a woman surnamed Chang, who lived next door to a printing press warehouse near the capital that virtually pancaked in the quake, but all 50 inside at the time were plucked to safety.
“Many of the decorations at home fell on the floor, but people were safe.”
The earthquake was the strongest since a 7.6-magnitude one that struck in September 1999, killing almost 2,400 people in the greatest natural disaster in the island’s history, according to Wu Chien-fu, director of Taipei’s Central Weather Administration’s Seismology Centre.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that the epicentre of Wednesday’s magnitude 7.4 earthquake was 34.8 kilometres deep and located 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of Hualien City, Taiwan. The earthquake occurred immediately before 8:00 a.m. local time (0000 GMT).
According to officials, three members of a party of seven who were hiking in the surrounding hills early in the morning were crushed to death by boulders that had been loosened by the earthquake.
A man died in a mine quarry, while the drivers of a truck and an automobile perished when their cars were struck by falling boulders.
The National Fire Agency stated that all of the fatalities had occurred in Hualien County and that 946 people had been hurt, though it did not say how seriously. It did not immediately provide details on the other three deaths.
Shared footage and pictures of buildings wobbling during the earthquake from all over the island were all over social media.
“It was shaking violently, the paintings on the wall, my TV and liquor cabinet fell,” one man in Hualien told broadcaster SET TV.
Dramatic images were shown on local TV of multi-storey structures in Hualien and elsewhere tilting after the quake ended, while a printing warehouse in New Taipei City crumbled.
The mayor there said more than 50 survivors had been successfully plucked from the ruins of the structure.
Local TV channels showed bulldozers clearing rocks along the main route to Hualien, a mountain-ringed coastal city of around 100,000 people that has been cut off by landslides.
The main roads leading to the city pass through an extensive series of strongly built tunnels — some of them kilometres long — and officials said dozens of people could be trapped in vehicles inside.
Dozens of miners were also out of reach at a quarry in Hualien.
“We must carefully check how many people are trapped and we must rescue them quickly,” president-elect and current Vice-President Lai Ching-te told reporters in Hualien.
Engineers were also working to repair the main railway track that runs south from the capital down the eastern seaboard, which had been cut off in several places.
Regional impact
In Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines, authorities initially issued tsunami warnings but by around 10;00 am (0200 GMT), the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the threat had “largely passed”.
In the Taiwanese capital, the metro briefly stopped running but resumed within an hour, while residents received warnings from their local borough chiefs to check for any gas leaks.
Across the Taiwan Strait, social media users in China’s eastern Fujian province and elsewhere said they also felt strong tremors.
Residents of Hong Kong also reported feeling the earthquake.
China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province, was “paying close attention” to the quake and “willing to provide disaster relief assistance”, state news agency Xinhua said.
Fabrication at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — the world’s biggest chip maker — was briefly interrupted at some plants, a company official told AFP, while work at construction sites for new plants was halted for the day.
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