A strong earthquake in Taiwan on Wednesday caused damage to dozens of buildings, triggered tsunami warnings that reached Japan and the Philippines before being lifted, and left at least seven dead and nearly seven hundred injured. Ahead of more tremors in the coming days, officials said that the earthquake was the strongest to shake the island in decades.
Earthquake Strikes Taiwan: Wu Chien-fu Provides Insight
“The earthquake is shallow and occurs near land. The director of Taipei’s Central Weather Administration’s Seismology Center, Wu Chien-fu, stated that the earthquake was felt throughout Taiwan and offshore islands. Given that the island is located close to the meeting point of two tectonic plates, strict building codes and disaster awareness seem to have prevented a major disaster.
Wu stated that the earthquake was the strongest since September 1999, when a 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed about 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the island.
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Devastation Strikes Following Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake in Taiwan
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that the epicentre of Wednesday’s magnitude 7.4 earthquake was 34.8 kilometers deep and located 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of Hualien City, Taiwan. The earthquake occurred just before 8:00 am local time (0000 GMT).
According to officials, three members of a group of seven who were hiking through the surrounding hills early in the morning were crushed to death by boulders that had been loosened by the earthquake.
Separately, a truck driver lost his life when a landslide struck his car as it approached a nearby tunnel. Shared videos and pictures of buildings trembling across the nation went viral on social media as soon as the earthquake struck.
“I wanted to run, but I had no clothes on. That was really powerful,” remarked Kelvin Hwang, a visitor to a hotel in Taipei’s capital who took refuge in the ninth-floor elevator lobby. After it ended, dramatic pictures of multi-story buildings in Hualien and other places tilting were shown on local TV, and a warehouse in New Taipei City collapsed.
Local TV stations featured bulldozers removing rocks from the roads leading to Hualien, a coastal city surrounded by mountains and home to about 100,000 people before landslides cut it off. Together with a call for coordination between regional and national government agencies, President Tsai Ing-wen announced that the national army would also be lending support.
The National Fire Agency verified the death toll and added that about 60 individuals were receiving treatment for injuries sustained during the earthquake.
