Strong earthquakes continued on the 18th (local time) in Taiwan and Japan. The two countries belong to the Pacific Rim seismic belt known as the ‘Ring of Fire’.
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake occurred at 2:44 p.m. in eastern Taiwan on the same day. A three-story building collapsed in the eastern Hualien district. Firefighters rescued four people from the building that day. When the ceiling of the train station platform collapsed, six carriages of the running train derailed. Bridges and school buildings in Runtian and other areas also collapsed.
The earthquake also caused power outages in Hualien, Taipei, and Kaohsiung. The US Tsunami Warning Center (TWC) has issued a tsunami warning for Taiwan, and the Japan Meteorological Agency has issued a tsunami advisory for the Miyakojima and Yaeyama regions of Okinawa Prefecture.
At around 5:39 pm that day, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurred in an area 80 km south-southwest of Hualien in eastern Taiwan. The Taiwan Meteorological Agency said the earthquake was the main earthquake in the recent series of earthquakes. At 9:41 pm the day before, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 occurred in Guanshan Town, Taitung County.
At 5:10 pm on the same day, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake occurred in a sea area 178 km west of Okinawa, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Then, at 7:05 PM, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.5 occurred in a sea area 179 km west of Okinawa.
Reporter Lee Go-woon [email protected]