2024-04-04 10:31:32
The day after the worst earthquake in Taiwan in almost 25 years, authorities continued their search for missing people. The fire department announced on Thursday that 70 miners who were stuck in two quarries for hours were brought to safety. Six workers were airlifted from the area by helicopter. The number of injured rose to more than 1,060. The helpers also found another body, bringing the death toll to ten.
Finding those with whom there is no contact is the most important task, said Interior Minister Lin You-chang. These people urgently need food and water, he explained. Authorities were greatly concerned about the fate of about 30 employees at a luxury hotel in Taroko National Park in eastern Taiwan, where the earthquake was particularly strong. There was no contact with them, nor with another twelve people. In the area, more than 660 people were also stuck in various places such as campsites, caves and tunnels. The majority stayed in a hiking hotel. However, everyone was safe, authorities emphasized.
On Wednesday morning, the ground shook throughout Taiwan during rush hour. Fear and panic broke out. Taiwan, China, Japan and the Philippines issued tsunami warnings but lifted them a few hours later.
With a magnitude of 7.2 measured by the Taiwanese authorities, the quake was the strongest since 1999. At that time, a similarly strong earthquake killed more than 2,400 people. Taiwan then invested more in earthquake prevention. Other earthquake monitoring stations, such as those in the USA and Japan, even recorded magnitudes of 7.4 and 7.7 respectively. As of Thursday morning, more than 300 aftershocks had been recorded in Taiwan. The island lies in an earthquake-prone zone on the edge of two tectonic plates, the Eurasian and the Philippine.
This time the earth shook at a relatively shallow depth of 15.5 kilometers. The epicenter was in the east of the island with more than 23 million inhabitants and just a few kilometers from Hualien, probably the area most affected by damage.
The quake caused damage to roads, railways and buildings in some cities. In Hualien, houses sagged and leaned menacingly to one side. Many people’s dishes and furnishings were broken. A warehouse collapsed near the capital Taipei, injuring three people. There were landslides on numerous mountain slopes, as seen in videos. Among the ten dead was a truck driver whose truck was hit by a rockfall while driving. Others died in the national park.
The quake knocked out power in hundreds of thousands of households in Taiwan. According to authorities, electricity had been restored in most of them by Thursday morning. The water supply also stopped for many. Tens of thousands of households were dependent on supplies from mobile water trucks overnight.
Many companies temporarily stopped work because of the earthquake. Taiwan’s flagship chip manufacturer TSMC, which also builds components for smartphones worldwide, was also affected. The company reportedly stopped operations at its production facilities in the northwest of the country. According to the company, the earthquake also caused damage. However, important high-tech machines for chip production were not affected, it said. On Thursday, the plants were producing at around 70 percent capacity.
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