Status: 09/18/2022 11:09 am
A major earthquake has struck in eastern Taiwan. Houses and bridges were damaged and a train derailed. The consequences were also felt on the Chinese coast.
Taiwan has been shaken by a second strong earthquake within two days. According to authorities, the 6.8 magnitude quake struck 42 kilometers north of the city of Taitung. It took place at a depth of seven kilometers.
The tremors hit the sparsely populated southeastern part of the island, the Taiwan Meteorological Office said. Homes and bridges near the epicenter were severely damaged. A landslide blocked a road. A small grocery store collapsed in Taitung. Two people were trapped. Rescue teams struggled to extricate them and also tended to three people who fell from a damaged bridge, local media reports.
Tremors to Shanghai
Rail traffic has been temporarily suspended. A train derailed and around 20 passengers had to be brought to safety. They were unharmed. Elevators in tall buildings were stopped. Larger chip factories in the cities of Tainan and Kaohsiung are not affected by the earthquake, according to the operators.
As a journalist from the AFP news agency reported, tremors were also felt in the capital, Taipei.
The China Earthquake Networks Center, the state-owned Chinese earthquake observation center, reported clearly noticeable tremors in the coastal areas of the People’s Republic from Guangdong to Shanghai.
More than 100 people died in 2016
There was already an earthquake in the same region yesterday. However, it was less strong with a magnitude of 6.6. The island in the Pacific Ocean lies in the stress field of the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, which move a few centimeters per year and discharge as earthquakes when they collide. In 2016, more than 100 people died in the south of the island. A 7.3 magnitude earthquake killed over 2,000 people in 1999.