What is known about the earthquake in Taiwan

A violent earthquake has shaken the island nation of Taiwan. Since then, the number of deaths and injuries has been rising. Germans are also affected by the accident. An overview of the situation in the disaster area.

What happened?

Shortly before 8 a.m., Taiwan was shaken by a violent earthquake. According to local authorities, it had a magnitude of 7.2 and was the strongest quake in almost 25 years. The epicenter was just a few kilometers from the city of Hualien in northeastern Taiwan. Because it occurred close to land and at a shallow depth, it was “felt throughout Taiwan and on the islands off the coast,” said Wu Chien-fu, head of the Taiwan Meteorological Administration’s Seismological Center. In Hualien and the sparsely populated mountain region of the same name alone, more than 100 aftershocks were recorded, even many hours after the quake.

How many victims are there?

In the evening, the authorities spoke of nine deaths and more than 960 injuries. The dead all came from the Hualien region. Dozens of people are still trapped in tunnels and buildings. A total of 143 people are expected to be buried, the fire department’s operations management said. 60 of them are in a tunnel north of the city of Hualien. 71 miners are also trapped in two quarries, as the AP news agency reports, 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.

Are Germans also among the victims?

In the meantime, two Germans were also trapped in a tunnel on the country’s east coast near Taroko National Park. But they 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 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.

How extensive is the damage?

The full extent of the damage cannot yet be predicted. In the particularly affected city of Hualien, numerous buildings have collapsed, high-rise buildings are leaning and are in danger of collapsing completely, and cars on the streets have been completely destroyed by falling rubble. There are similar pictures from the suburbs of the capital Taipei. There was a temporary power outage in tens of thousands of households. Train services were suspended across the entire island. The subway service in Taipei was also temporarily interrupted. However, operations started again in the northeast of the capital.

Why was the quake in Taiwan so strong?

Taiwan lies on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped zone along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions often occur along this belt, which is more than 40,000 kilometers long, because different plates in the earth’s crust meet there.

“The Eurasian plate is submerging beneath the Philippine plate at a rate of about 7.8 centimeters per year,” says Torsten Dahm, geophysicist and seismologist at the German GeoResearch Center GFZ in Potsdam in an interview with tagesschau24. As a result, strong earthquakes like the one in Taiwan now occur again and again. According to Dahm, such an earthquake cannot be predicted in the short term. All you can do is determine the earthquake rate over many years and then make statements about which regions are particularly frequently affected by earthquakes.

What are the reactions abroad?

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.