Dubai Telegraph - Seven dead, hundreds injured in most powerful Taiwan quake in 25 years

EUR -
AED 3.891201
AFN 72.039685
ALL 98.100849
AMD 409.437665
ANG 1.900657
AOA 966.712075
ARS 1057.796539
AUD 1.628853
AWG 1.904283
AZN 1.804062
BAM 1.956458
BBD 2.129416
BDT 126.022372
BGN 1.950776
BHD 0.399246
BIF 3069.629473
BMD 1.059406
BND 1.41779
BOB 7.28745
BRL 6.089044
BSD 1.054604
BTN 88.991622
BWP 14.387973
BYN 3.450793
BYR 20764.361575
BZD 2.125815
CAD 1.485457
CDF 3040.496022
CHF 0.935646
CLF 0.037352
CLP 1030.64317
CNY 7.665972
CNH 7.65858
COP 4658.209074
CRC 537.085653
CUC 1.059406
CUP 28.074264
CVE 110.760843
CZK 25.299733
DJF 187.802008
DKK 7.459163
DOP 64.147013
DZD 141.325824
EGP 52.371848
ERN 15.891093
ETB 129.009157
FJD 2.403422
FKP 0.836207
GBP 0.835797
GEL 2.886856
GGP 0.836207
GHS 16.908088
GIP 0.836207
GMD 75.217814
GNF 9143.7349
GTQ 8.14774
GYD 220.634184
HKD 8.246026
HNL 26.670588
HRK 7.557019
HTG 138.537888
HUF 406.568404
IDR 16782.742273
ILS 3.961459
IMP 0.836207
INR 89.410547
IQD 1388.351829
IRR 44593.05834
ISK 144.4706
JEP 0.836207
JMD 167.377857
JOD 0.751226
JPY 163.611505
KES 136.128628
KGS 91.63792
KHR 4291.654328
KMF 492.359227
KPW 953.465181
KRW 1475.678499
KWD 0.325756
KYD 0.878804
KZT 526.201891
LAK 23253.966423
LBP 94922.795608
LKR 307.256209
LRD 193.524202
LSL 19.159367
LTL 3.128151
LVL 0.640824
LYD 5.175185
MAD 10.596141
MDL 19.162624
MGA 4936.832823
MKD 61.531295
MMK 3440.910022
MNT 3599.86222
MOP 8.456242
MRU 42.296799
MUR 49.261911
MVR 16.378548
MWK 1838.06978
MXN 21.41701
MYR 4.741161
MZN 67.722574
NAD 19.159367
NGN 1767.121274
NIO 38.932883
NOK 11.657997
NPR 142.381217
NZD 1.799497
OMR 0.407884
PAB 1.054555
PEN 4.020461
PGK 4.261001
PHP 62.128885
PKR 294.314082
PLN 4.318039
PYG 8220.151812
QAR 3.856769
RON 4.976138
RSD 117.006178
RUB 105.668324
RWF 1451.386498
SAR 3.97711
SBD 8.866721
SCR 14.755111
SDG 637.227276
SEK 11.561199
SGD 1.41845
SHP 0.836207
SLE 23.995293
SLL 22215.223388
SOS 605.446447
SRD 37.508281
STD 21927.569466
SVC 9.22819
SYP 2661.789717
SZL 19.016034
THB 36.644553
TJS 11.221403
TMT 3.707922
TND 3.347386
TOP 2.481232
TRY 36.631616
TTD 7.159475
TWD 34.385467
TZS 2811.644994
UAH 43.676398
UGX 3872.301979
USD 1.059406
UYU 45.225206
UZS 13586.884811
VES 48.448686
VND 26924.808645
VUV 125.774833
WST 2.957429
XAF 656.183822
XAG 0.033996
XAU 0.000406
XCD 2.863098
XDR 0.802277
XOF 656.831773
XPF 119.331742
YER 264.692899
ZAR 19.015291
ZMK 9535.919228
ZMW 29.082151
ZWL 341.128365
  • BCC

    1.4500

    141.54

    +1.02%

  • CMSC

    0.0540

    24.624

    +0.22%

  • RIO

    1.1400

    62.12

    +1.84%

  • NGG

    0.1500

    62.9

    +0.24%

  • BCE

    0.4100

    27.23

    +1.51%

  • GSK

    0.3400

    33.69

    +1.01%

  • CMSD

    -0.0500

    24.39

    -0.21%

  • SCS

    -0.0300

    13.2

    -0.23%

  • BTI

    0.2900

    36.68

    +0.79%

  • BP

    0.4400

    29.42

    +1.5%

  • RBGPF

    1.6500

    61.84

    +2.67%

  • JRI

    0.1300

    13.23

    +0.98%

  • RELX

    0.5900

    45.04

    +1.31%

  • RYCEF

    0.0700

    6.85

    +1.02%

  • AZN

    0.1600

    63.39

    +0.25%

  • VOD

    0.1500

    8.92

    +1.68%

Seven dead, hundreds injured in most powerful Taiwan quake in 25 years

Seven dead, hundreds injured in most powerful Taiwan quake in 25 years

At least seven people were killed and more than 700 injured Wednesday by a powerful earthquake in Taiwan that damaged dozens of buildings and prompted tsunami warnings that extended to Japan and the Philippines before being lifted.

Text size:

Officials said the quake was the strongest to shake the island in decades, and warned of more tremors in the days ahead.

"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 widespread public disaster awareness appear to have staved off a major catastrophe for the earthquake-prone island, which lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.

Wu said the quake was the strongest since a 7.6-magnitude struck in September 1999, killing around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island's history.

Wednesday's magnitude-7.4 quake hit just before 8:00 am local time (0000 GMT), with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) putting the epicentre 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of Taiwan's Hualien City, at a depth of 34.8 kilometres.

Three people among a group of seven on an early-morning hike through the hills that surround the city were crushed to death by boulders loosened by the earthquake, officials said.

Separately, a truck driver died when his vehicle was hit by a landslide as it approached a tunnel in the area.

The National Fire Agency said all the deaths occurred in Hualien county, and that so far 736 people had been injured in the quake, without specifying how seriously.

Social media was awash with shared video and images from around the country of buildings swaying as the quake struck.

Dramatic images were shown on local TV of multi-storey structures in Hualien and elsewhere tilting after the quake ended, while a 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 roads to Hualien, a mountain-ringed coastal city of around 100,000 people that has been cut off by landslides.

"It was shaking violently, the paintings on the wall, my TV and liquor cabinet fell," one man in Hualien told broadcaster SET TV.

President Tsai Ing-wen called for local and central government agencies to coordinate with each other, and said that the military would also be providing support.

- Regional impact -

In Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines, authorities initially issued tsunami warnings but by around 10 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.

Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates, while nearby Japan experiences around 1,500 jolts every year.

Across the Taiwan Strait, social media users in China's eastern Fujian province, which borders Guangdong in the south, 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.

The vast majority of quakes around the area are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to the depth of the epicentre below the Earth's surface and its location.

The severity of tsunamis -- vast and potentially destructive series of waves that can move at hundreds of kilometres per hour -- also depends on multiple factors.

Japan's biggest earthquake on record was a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea jolt in March 2011 off its northeast coast, which triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.

The 2011 catastrophe also sent three reactors into meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant, causing Japan's worst post-war disaster and the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Japan saw a major quake on New Year's Day this year, when a 7.5-magnitude tremor hit the Noto Peninsula and killed more than 230 people, many of them when older buildings collapsed.

burs-dhc/fox/smw

H.Pradhan--DT