LAST UPDATE | 3 Apr 2024

AT LEAST NINE people have been killed and more than 800 have been injured after Taiwan experienced its most powerful earthquake in recent history. 

The 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the island nation at around 8am (12am Irish time) this morning. Officials said the quake was the strongest to shake the island in decades, and warned of more tremors in the days ahead.

Hundreds-of-thousands were left without power after the earthquake, while search efforts are ongoing. 

Three people among a group of seven on an early-morning hike through the hills that surround the city were crushed to death by boulders loosened by the earthquake, officials said.

Separately, a truck driver died when his vehicle was hit by a landslide as it approached a tunnel in the area.

Local fire brigades sent teams of 30 out to begin early search efforts as the Government of Taiwan waived the requirement for citizens to have health insurance cards to receive medical attention.

The epicentre was located 18 kilometres south of Taiwan’s Hualien City, home to more than 100,000 people, at a depth of 34.8 kilometres. It was the strongest earthquake since 1999.

Strict building regulations and disaster awareness appear to have staved off a major catastrophe for the island. Alamy Alamy

The powerful shakes caused damage to dozens of buildings and prompted tsunami warnings, that extended to Japan and the Philippines before being lifted.

The quake and aftershocks also caused 24 landslides and damage to 35 roads, bridges and tunnels.

“The earthquake is close to land and it’s shallow. It’s felt all over Taiwan and offshore islands,” said Wu Chien-fu, director of Taipei’s Central Weather Administration’s Seismology Center.

Strict building regulations and disaster awareness appear to have staved off a major catastrophe for the island, which is regularly hit by earthquakes as it lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.

Social media was awash with shared video and images from around the country of buildings swaying as the quake struck.

“I wanted to run out, but I wasn’t dressed. That was so strong,” said Kelvin Hwang, a guest at a hotel in the capital, Taipei, who sought shelter in the lift lobby on the ninth floor.

Dramatic images were shown on local TV of multi-storey structures in Hualien and elsewhere tilting after it ended, while a warehouse in New Taipei City crumbled.

Local TV channels showed bulldozers clearing rocks along roads to Hualien, a mountain-ringed coastal city of around 100,000 people that was cut off by landslides.

President Tsai Ing-wen called for local and central government agencies to coordinate with each other, and said that the national army would also be providing support.

The National Fire Agency confirmed the death toll, adding nearly 60 people had been treated for quake-related injuries.

Regional impact

In Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines, authorities initially issued a tsunami warning but by around 10am (2am Irish time), the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the threat had “largely passed”.

In the capital, the metro briefly stopped running but resumed within an hour, while residents received warnings from their local borough chiefs to check for any gas leaks.

By noon, the metro station in the busy northern Taipei suburb of Beitou was again buzzing with people commuting to jobs and others arriving to visit the hot springs or travel the mountain paths at the base of an extinct volcano.

Engineers are also working to repair the main railway track that runs south from the capital down the eastern seaboard, which has been cut off in several places.

Across the Taiwan Strait, social media users in China’s eastern Fujian province, which borders Guangdong in the south, and elsewhere said they also felt strong tremors.

Government workers and journalists are seen near firefighters working near a leaning building in the aftermath of an earthquake in Hualien, eastern Taiwan Alamy Alamy

Residents of Hong Kong also reported feeling the earthquake. China said it was “paying close attention” to the quake and “willing to provide disaster relief assistance”, state news agency Xinhua said.

Fabrication at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company – the world’s biggest chip maker – was briefly interrupted at some plants, a company official told AFP, while work at construction sites for new plants was halted for the day.

The vast majority of quakes around the area are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to the depth of the epicentre below the Earth’s surface and its location.

The severity of tsunamis – vast and potentially destructive series of waves that can move at hundreds of kilometres per hour – also depends on multiple factors.

Contains reporting from Jane Moore, Hayley Halpin and © AFP 2024