A massive earthquake in Taiwan on Wednesday left at least one person dead and almost 60 injured, damaging dozens of buildings and prompting tsunami warnings that spread to Japan and the Philippines before being withdrawn.
Taiwan earthquake: The epicenter of the magnitude-7.4 quake was 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of Taiwan’s Hualien City
Officials said the earthquake and subsequent powerful aftershocks were the strongest to strike the island in decades, and they warned of additional tremors in the coming days.
“The earthquake is close to land, and it’s shallow. It’s felt all over Taiwan and offshore islands,” said Wu Chien-fu, director of Taipei’s Central Weather Administration’s Seismology Center.
Strict building regulations and disaster awareness appear to have averted a big calamity for the island, which is frequently struck by earthquakes due to its location near the intersection of two tectonic plates.
Wu said the quake was the strongest since a 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck in September 1999, killing over 2,400 people in the island’s history.
The magnitude-7.4 quake struck just before 8:00 a.m. local time (0000 GMT) on Wednesday, with the epicenter 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of Taiwan’s Hualien City at a depth of 34.8 kilometers, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Social media was flooded with videos and photographs of buildings wobbling in response to the earthquake.
Local channels showed dramatic photos of multi-story buildings in Hualien and elsewhere collapsing because of the disaster.
Landslides have reportedly shut roads to Hualien, a mountain-ringed coastal city of approximately 100,000 inhabitants.
Taiwan is frequently affected by earthquakes due to its location near the junction of two tectonic plates
Authorities in Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines initially issued a tsunami warning, but the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center stated the threat had “largely passed” by around 10 a.m. (0200 GMT).
In the capital, the metro briefly halted operations but resumed within an hour, while citizens were warned by their local borough leaders to check for gas leaks.
Taiwan is frequently affected by earthquakes due to its location near the junction of two tectonic plates, but nearby Japan faces over 1,500 jolts every year.
Japan’s largest earthquake on record was a massive 9.0-magnitude underwater shock off the northeast coast in March 2011, which caused a tsunami that killed or left over 18,500 people missing.
The 2011 incident also melted three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, resulting in Japan’s biggest post-war disaster and the most significant nuclear accident since Chernobyl.