Violent earthquake in Taiwan collapses buildings and triggers tsunami warning

A powerful earthquake shook the entire island of Taiwan on Wednesday morning local time, destroying buildings and triggering large landslides. A five-story building in Hualie was partially collapsed with the first floor collapsed and the rest tilted at a 45-degree angle. In the capital, Taipei, tiles fell from older buildings and some newer office complexes.

Train service was suspended across the island of 23 million people, as was subway service in Taipei. Routine quickly returned to normal in the capital, with children going to school and the morning commute seeming normal.

Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency estimated the earthquake’s magnitude at 7.2 while the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported 7.4. The quake occurred at 7:58 am local time, about 18 kilometers south-southwest of Hualien, and was 35 kilometers deep.

The head of Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring department, Wu Chien-fu, said the effects had been seen as far away as Kinmen, a Taiwan-controlled island off the coast of China. Several aftershocks were felt in Taipei within an hour of the initial earthquake.

The USGS said one of the subsequent earthquakes (reçica) was magnitude 6.5 at 11.8 kilometers deep. Strong aftershocks are very common after a large earthquake, like the one that hit Taiwan.

The Japan Meteorological Agency warned of the possibility of a tsunami of up to 3 meters on the islands of Okinawa, in the south of the country. A 30-centimeter wave was detected off the coast of Yonaguni island about 15 minutes after the earthquake. JAMA said the waves likely also reached the coasts of Miyako and Yaeyama islands.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no threat of a tsunami in Hawaii or the US Pacific territory of Guam. The risk was also removed for states on the North American West Coast, such as California and Oregon.

This earthquake is believed to be the largest in Taiwan since a 1999 tremor caused extensive damage. Taiwan lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the line of seismic faults that encircle the Pacific Ocean, where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

The Pacific Ring of Fire is formed by the meeting of several tectonic plates, making the region an area with a high frequency of earthquakes and tsunamis. This area is responsible for around 90% of earthquakes and 50% of volcanoes across the planet.

The so-called circle runs the entire length of the Pacific Ocean coast. It begins with a branch in the Indian Ocean and runs through Indonesia, Sumatra and Malaysia to the Philippine Plate. So, the ring encompasses the entire Pacific Plate, the Juan de Fuca Plate (located in front of the coast of Canada and the American states of Washington and Oregon), the Cocos Plate (located in the Pacific in front of Central America) and the Nazca plate (next to South America).

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