‘I felt pressure on my head’, says Taiwan resident about earthquake

On condition that his name not be revealed, a Taiwanese resident of Taipei told the Mail that the epicenter of the earthquake was located in the northwestern part of the island of Taiwan, in Hualien County. “It all happened at 8:10 am this Wednesday (9:10 pm on Tuesday in Brasilia). It was very strong! I was walking, climbing a hill and I felt some kind of pressure on my head. I felt my whole body shake”, he reported. “It’s been an hour and the earth continues to shake,” he added.

When he got home at 9am, he turned on the television and checked the news. “I learned that this earthquake was the most intense to hit Taiwan since September 21, 1991. That tremor caused a lot of damage in central Taiwan,” she said. He believes that, because the epicenter was on an island, the destruction was not overwhelming.

“The subway and bullet train stopped for about 40 minutes, but they started running again. In Hualien, a highway that runs through Taiwan’s Central Mountain Range was affected by many landslides. Some tunnels were also blocked, disrupting commuter traffic. north to east Taiwan.”

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake shook Taiwan on Tuesday night (2/4) — early Wednesday morning, local time — and triggered tsunami warnings there and on islands south of Japan, local authorities reported.

The government of Taiwan and Japan predict waves of up to three meters on the coast. The warning in Japan was for remote islands near Taiwan, including Miyakojima Island. “Evacuate!” said a sign on Japanese national television NHK. “A tsunami is coming, please evacuate immediately”, said a presenter from that station. The earthquake had its epicenter 18 km south of the Taiwanese city of Hualien, with a depth of 34.8 km.