On the 18th of September in Taipei (CSU), An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 struck Taiwan’s sparsely populated southeast region on Sunday, according to the island’s weather service. The tremor caused railway carriages to derail, caused a convenience store to collapse, and caused hundreds of people to become stranded on mountain roads.
According to the weather bureau, the epicenter was located in Taitung county. This quake came after a 6.4 magnitude tremor that occurred on Saturday evening in the same region, however it did not result in any fatalities.
The earthquake that occurred on Sunday was recorded as having a magnitude of 7.2 and a depth of 10 kilometres by the United States Geological Survey (six miles).
The fire department in Taiwan said that all four individuals were saved from a building in Yuli that had collapsed and housed a convenience shop. Additionally, the fire department reported that three persons whose vehicle had fallen off a damaged bridge were rescued and sent to the hospital.
According to the Taiwan Railways Administration, six cars came off the rails at the Dongli station in eastern Taiwan when part of the platform canopy collapsed. However, the fire department reported that there were no injuries as a result of the incident.
The department reported that there were no injuries and that rescue workers were working to reopen the roads, but that this did not prevent more than 600 people from becoming trapped on the scenic mountain areas of Chike and Liushishi.
After the earthquake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in the United States issued a warning for Taiwan, but they later cancelled the warning. The tsunami warning that had been issued by the Japanese weather agency for a portion of Okinawa prefecture has been removed.
According to the meteorology agency, the earthquake was able to be felt all over Taiwan. A number of buildings in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, trembled for a few seconds during the earthquake, and the island is still being shaken by aftershocks.
Science parks in the cities of Tainan and Kaohsiung in the south of Taiwan, which are home to large semiconductor companies, have reported that operations have not been affected.
The world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) (2330.TW), stated that there was “no known significant impact for now.”
As a result of its location close to the boundary between two tectonic plates, Taiwan is prone to earthquakes.
In southern Taiwan, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake claimed the lives of more than 100 people in 2016, while a magnitude 7.3 earthquake claimed the lives of more than 2,000 people in 1999.
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