According to the Taiwan National Fire Department, all the deaths occurred in the Hualien region, the closest to the epicenter of the earthquake, off the east of the island.
Three of the victims died while hiking on the Taroko Dekaron trail in Xiulin municipality. Another victim, a truck driver, died in a landslide near a road tunnel.
Firefighters also said that there are still 77 people trapped in the rubble. Of these, 60 are trapped in a tunnel north of the city of Hualien.
The earthquake occurred at 9:00 am local time (1:00 am in Lisbon), with the epicenter located near Hualien, at a depth of 15.5 kilometers, according to the China Seismological Center.
Hualien, a city with around 100,000 inhabitants, was the city that suffered the most damage. At least two residential buildings partially collapsed, leaving people trapped inside.
More than 300,000 homes were left without electricity, although the supply has already been restored to around 70 percent of homes. Taiwan’s Nuclear Safety Commission said the island’s nuclear facilities were not damaged.
Tsunami warnings withdrawn
The earthquake initially triggered tsunami warnings in Taiwan, the southwestern islands of Japan and several provinces in the Philippines, where people in coastal areas were urged to seek higher altitudes.
All alerts were, however, withdrawn. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, a regional observatory based in Hawaii (United States), announced, at around 2:00 am (GMT), that “the tsunami threat has largely passed”.
Naha airport, the largest on the Japanese island of Okinawa, temporarily suspended air traffic. However, flights resumed after the tsunami warning was lifted. The earthquake, measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale, is the strongest recorded in Taiwan in 25 years, as confirmed by the Taiwan Seismological Center. In September 1999, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake killed 2,400 people in Taiwan.
China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory, said it was observing the earthquake “very carefully” and was “ready to provide help to the victims”, according to the national news agency New China.
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