The death toll from the earthquake in Taiwan has risen to nine. Two Germans who were buried in a tunnel have now been freed. According to the fire department, contact was lost with 50 people trapped in a national park.
At least nine people died in the severe earthquake in Taiwan. Authorities and rescue workers expect the number of victims to continue to rise. The national fire department also reported around 950 injuries.
A total of 137 people are expected to be buried, the fire department’s operations management said. 60 of them were in a tunnel north of the city of Hualien in the sparsely populated mountain region of the same name, which was particularly hard hit by the quake. 70 miners are trapped in two quarries, the AP news agency reported, citing the fire department.
The authorities have currently lost contact with 50 people who were traveling in minibuses in a national park. Accordingly, the telephone connection was down.
The two Germans, who were temporarily trapped in a tunnel, have now been freed. According to its own information, the Foreign Office is in contact with another travel group with Germans. A spokesman for the Foreign Office in Berlin said it was a group of 19 people who were originally considered missing. 18 of them were German and, given the circumstances, they were doing well, it was said.
More than 100 aftershocks
Shortly before 8 a.m. an earthquake shook the entire island. It had a magnitude of 7.2, according to Taiwanese data, and was the strongest in almost 25 years. Its epicenter was just a few kilometers from Hualien. The US earthquake monitoring station registered a magnitude of 7.4. In Japan the magnitude was even measured at 7.7. More than 100 aftershocks were recorded around Hualien alone.
There was a temporary power outage in tens of thousands of households. Train service was suspended across the island, as was subway service in the capital, Taipei.
Tsunami warnings in several countries
Taiwan, China, Japan and the Philippines warned of tsunamis for several hours. The warnings were later relaxed and then lifted. In Japan, northeast of Taiwan, the earthquake triggered a warning of a three-meter-high tsunami for nearby islands in southwestern Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture. Residents of the affected islands were called upon to seek safety.
Authorities in the Philippines also issued a tsunami warning. The National Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said high tsunami waves were expected that could last for hours. People in several provinces of the island nation were asked to seek safety and leave the coastal regions.
The Pacific Ring of Fire
Taiwan lies on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped zone along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. It is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This is where different plates of the earth’s crust meet. Tectonic shifts and faults occur. A large part of the active volcanoes lie along this belt, which is more than 40,000 kilometers long. It extends from the South and North American west coasts via the North Pacific island groups of the Aleutian and Kuril Islands to Japan and further via the Philippines, the eastern edge of Indonesia, various South Sea island states and all the way to New Zealand.
EU and China offer help to Taiwan
EU Council President Charles Michel offered Taiwan the European Union’s help. “My sincerest condolences go out to everyone affected by the earthquake in Taiwan,” he said on the X platform. “And my condolences to the families of the victims.” The EU is ready to provide any help required.
China, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province, also offered help to the island. Chinese authorities are very concerned about the situation, said Chinese Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian in Beijing. The mainland is monitoring the situation and is ready to offer disaster assistance.
Thorsten Iffland, ARD Tokyo, tagesschau, April 3, 2024 11:54 a.m