When Taiwan’s biggest earthquake in half a century struck its eastern coast, buildings in the nearest city, Hualien, swayed and shook. The more than 300 followingshocks that shook the island in the following 24 hours, until Thursday morning, shook buildings once more and once more.
But, for the most part, they stood tall.
Even the two most damaged buildings remained largely intact, allowing residents to escape safely through upper-floor windows. One of them, the rounded red brick Uranus building, which leaned precariously following the collapse of its first floors, attracted mainly curious onlookers.
The building is a reminder of how much Taiwan has prepared for disasters like the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck the island on Wednesday. Thanks to a combination of improved building codes, public awareness, and highly trained search and rescue operations—and possibly a dose of good luck—casualty numbers were relatively low. By Thursday, 10 people had died and more than 1,000 were injured. Several dozen were missing.
“Earthquakes of similar level in other societies have killed many more people,” said Daniel Aldrich, director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University. Of Taiwan, he added: “And most of these deaths, it seems, have been caused by falling rocks and boulders, rather than by building collapses.”
Across the island, rail traffic had resumed on Thursday, including trains to Hualien. Workers who had been trapped in a quarry were removed by helicopter. Little by little the roads were repaired. Hundreds of people were trapped in a hotel near a national park due to a road blockade, but were visited by rescue teams and doctors.
In the city of Hualien on Thursday, the surroundings of the Uranus building were cordoned off as construction workers tried to prevent the leaning structure from collapsing completely. First they placed three-legged concrete blocks that looked like giant Lego pieces in front of the building, and then they piled dirt and rocks on top of those blocks with bulldozers.
“We came to see with our own eyes how bad it was, why it had tilted,” said Chang Mei-chu, a 66-year-old retiree who approached the building on a scooter on Thursday with her husband Lai Yung-chi, of 72 years old. Lai said he was a retired builder who used to install electricity and water pipes in buildings, so she knew construction regulations. The couple’s apartment, near the Hualien train station, had not suffered serious damage, she said.
“I wasn’t worried regarding our building, because I know they paid attention to earthquake resistance when they built it. I watched them pour the cement to make sure,” Lai said. “There have been improvements. After each earthquake, the standards go up a little more.”
It was possible to walk several blocks without seeing clear signs of the powerful earthquake. Many buildings remained intact, some old and weathered; others, modern multi-story concrete and glass structures. The shops were open and selling coffee, ice cream and betel nuts. Next to the Uranus building, a popular night market with food stalls offering fried seafood, dumplings and sweets was in operation Thursday night.
Earthquakes are inevitable in Taiwan, which sits on multiple active fault lines. Decades of work learning from other disasters, enforcing strict building codes and raising public awareness have helped its residents weather frequent strong earthquakes.
Not far from the Uranus building, for example, authorities inspected a building with cracked pillars and concluded that it was dangerous to remain in. Residents were given 15 minutes to go inside and collect whatever belongings they might. Some ran out with computers, while others threw bags of clothes out of the windows onto the street, which was also still littered with broken glass and fragments of cement from the earthquake.
One of its residents, Chen Ching-ming, a preacher at a neighboring church, said he thought the building might be torn down. He was able to save a television and some sheets, which are now on the sidewalk, and was preparing to go back inside for more. “I will lose many valuable things: a refrigerator, a microwave, a washing machine,” he said. “All lost.”
Earthquake resistance requirements were incorporated into Taiwan’s building codes in 1974. In the decades since, Taiwan’s building code drfollowings have also applied lessons learned from other large earthquakes around the world, including from Mexico and Los Angeles, to reinforce the Taiwanese code.
After more than 2,400 people died and at least 10,000 others were injured during the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, thousands of buildings built before the quake were overhauled and reinforced. After another strong earthquake in 2018 in Hualien, the government ordered a new round of building inspections. Since then, multiple building code updates have been released.
“We have retrofitted more than 10,000 school buildings in the past 20 years,” said Chung-Che Chou, director general of the National Earthquake Engineering Research Center in Taipei.
The government has also helped reinforce private apartment buildings in the past six years, adding new steel braces and increasing the size of columns and beams, Chou said. Not far from the buildings that partially collapsed in Hualien, some of the older buildings that had been adapted in this way survived Wednesday’s earthquake, he said.
The upshot of all this is that even Taiwan’s tallest skyscrapers can withstand regular seismic shaking. The capital’s most iconic building, Taipei 101, which was once the tallest in the world, was designed to withstand typhoon winds and frequent earthquakes. Still, some experts say more needs to be done to reinforce or demolish substandard structures, and these calls have grown louder following the latest earthquake.
Taiwan has another compelling reason to protect its infrastructure: it is home to most of the production of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest manufacturer of advanced computer chips. The supply chain for electronics, from smartphones to cars to fighter jets, relies on production at TSMC factories, which make these chips in facilities that cost billions of dollars to build.
The 1999 earthquake also led TSMC to take additional measures to isolate its factories from earthquake damage. The company made significant structural adjustments and adopted new technologies, such as early warning systems. When another major earthquake hit the southern city of Kaohsiung in February 2016, TSMC’s two nearby factories survived without structural damage.
According to experts, Taiwan has made great progress in its response to disasters. In the first 24 hours following the earthquake, rescuers freed hundreds of people who were trapped in vehicles between rockfalls on the highway and stranded on mountain ledges in rock quarries.
“After years of hard work on capacity building, the island’s overall performance has improved markedly,” said Bruce Wong, an emergency management consultant in Hong Kong. Taiwanese rescue teams have specialized in complex tasks, and have also known how to take advantage of the capabilities of qualified volunteers.
Taiwan’s resilience is also due to a strong civil society that participates in preparing the population for disasters.
Ou Chi-hu, a member of a group of Taiwanese military veterans, was helping distribute water and other supplies at a school serving as a shelter for displaced residents in Hualien. He said people had learned from the 1999 earthquake to be more prepared.
“They know to take shelter in a corner of the room or another safer place,” he said. Many residents also keep a bag of essential items next to their beds, and have fire extinguishers, she added.
Around them, a dozen charitable organizations and groups offered residents food, money, counseling and childcare. The Tzu Chi Foundation, a large Taiwanese Buddhist charity, provided tents for families to use inside the school lobby so they might have more privacy. Huang Yu-chi, head of disaster relief at the foundation, said nonprofit organizations had learned from previous disasters.
“Now we are more systematic and have a better idea of disaster prevention,” Huang said.
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