A massive earthquake in Taiwan killed at least nine people and injured more than 900 on Wednesday, causing damage to dozens of structures and triggering tsunami warnings that spread to Japan and the Philippines before being withdrawn.
Dozens of people were thought to be safe but inaccessible in locations cut off by large landslides caused by the earthquake, many of whom were in tunnels cutting through the mountains that divide the island from north to south.
Officials claimed the quake was the largest to strike the island in decades, and warned of further earthquakes in the coming days.
Strict building codes and widespread public disaster awareness appear to have averted a big calamity for the earthquake-prone island, located near the confluence of two tectonic plates.
“We were very lucky,” said a woman called Chang, who lived next door to a printing press warehouse near the capital that nearly collapsed during the quake but rescued all 50 people inside.
“Many of the decorations at home fell on the floor, but people were safe.”
Wu Chien-fu, head of Taipei’s Central Weather Administration’s Seismology Center, said the quake was the strongest since a 7.6-magnitude quake occurred in September 1999, killing almost 2,400 people in the island’s deadliest natural disaster.
The magnitude-7.4 quake struck just before 8:00 a.m. local time (0000 GMT) on Wednesday, with the epicentre 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of Taiwan’s Hualien City and 34.8 kilometres deep, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Three of seven individuals on an early-morning stroll across the hills around the city were killed by boulders loosened by the earthquake, according to officials.
Separately, the drivers of a truck and a car were killed when their vehicles were struck by cascading rocks, while another guy died in a mining quarry.
The National Fire Agency did not immediately provide information on the other three deaths, but did state that all of them occurred in Hualien County, and that 946 people were injured, though the severity of the injuries was not specified.
Social media was flooded with uploaded video and photographs of buildings trembling as the earthquake hit the island.
“It was shaking violently, the paintings on the wall, my TV, and liquor cabinet fell,” one Hualien resident told SET TV.
Local television broadcast dramatic footage of multi-story structures in Hualien and elsewhere swaying after the earthquake, while a printing warehouse in New Taipei City collapsed.
The mayor there stated that more than 50 individuals had been successfully rescued from the structure’s debris.
Local television stations showed bulldozers cleaning rocks along the main road to Hualien, a mountain-ringed coastal city of approximately 100,000 people shut off by landslides.
The main routes leading to the city pass through a vast network of heavily reinforced tunnels, some of which are kilometers long, and officials fear that scores of people may be trapped inside automobiles.
Dozens of miners were also trapped at a quarry near Hualien.
“We must carefully check how many people are trapped and rescue them quickly,” president-elect and current Vice President Lai Ching-te told reporters in Hualien.
Engineers were also attempting to rebuild the main railway track that runs south from the city along the eastern seaboard, which had been severed in numerous places.
Regional impact
Authorities in Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines initially issued tsunami warnings, however the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center stated that the threat had “largely passed” by around 10:00 a.m. (0200 GMT).
In Taiwan’s capital, the metro briefly halted operations but resumed within an hour, while people were warned by their local borough chiefs to check for gas leaks.
Across the Taiwan Strait, social media users in China’s eastern Fujian province and others reported feeling powerful earthquakes.
Residents in Hong Kong also reported feeling the earthquake.
According to state news agency Xinhua, China, which considers self-ruled Taiwan a renegade province, was “paying close attention” to the quake and “willing to provide disaster relief assistance”.
Fabrication at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chipmaker, was briefly interrupted at several plants, according to a company official, while work on new plant building was paused for the day.