The first quake was alarming enough — a rumble louder than anything felt in Taiwan for a quarter of a century, which lasted more than a minute Wednesday morning, shaking things and even entire buildings. is tilted. It was so powerful that it triggered tsunami warnings in Japan, China and the Philippines.
But then, even in a fault-ridden area with a long and hard experience of earthquakes, aftershock after aftershock was startling, continuing every few minutes throughout the day.
The magnitude-7.4 quake killed nine and injured at least 1,038 others, straining an expert earthquake response system that has served as a model elsewhere. In Hualien County, near the epicenter, 93 people were stranded as of Thursday morning, including dozens at two mining sites, officials said. Forty flights were canceled or delayed. About 14,000 households are without water, and 1,000 households are without electricity.
As of late Wednesday night, 201 aftershocks had been reported, many above magnitude 5. With rain expected in the coming days, authorities warned of possible landslides.
“I was sleeping at home when the shaking started, and it kept shaking and shaking for a long time,” said Chen Hsing-yun, a 26-year-old Hualien resident who was with her 2-year-old son and the his parents in a third floor apartment when the earthquake struck. “After the main quake stopped, I went downstairs with my baby – but then the tremors kept coming all day.”
Many residents were at home, preparing for work and school, when the earthquake struck. Others were driving on highways or had already taken early hikes in Taiwan’s national parks before the four-day vacation. After the main quake subsided, people across the island fled into the streets to survey damaged buildings and quickly text friends and family members reassurances and photos of damaged properties.
But almost immediately, people felt the gut-wrenching aftershock of an aftershock. Taiwan is prone to earthquakes, and small tremors are common, but they continue every few minutes throughout the day. By 3 p.m., there had been 101 aftershocks, with at least one of magnitude 6.5 and several above magnitude 5.
Officials said more aftershocks were possible in the next four days and warned residents to avoid visiting ancestral tombs, especially in the mountains, this weekend during the holiday, known as Ching Ming, to honor them. The forecast called for rain, which could make travel conditions on damaged roads even more treacherous.
Although the earthquake reverberated for a long time because it was so large, a high number of aftershocks was unheard of, for an earthquake of this magnitude, said Yi-Ying Wen, an earthquake expert at National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan. “We should expect the size of the aftershocks to gradually decrease and be small over the next two weeks.”
The worst damage was in Hualien County.
In the city of Hualien, the county seat, rescuers focused on a brick building with glass windows called the Uranus Building, which had partially collapsed and was leaning heavily to one side. Residents appeared through windows and climbed ladders, assisted by rescuers.
The fire department said one person in the building died, while about two dozen others were evacuated. By nightfall, construction workers used a crane to place large concrete blocks around the tilted building to stabilize it. Hotels and street shops, including a 7-Eleven convenience store — a regular sight in Taiwan — remained open, though aftershocks continued to shake buildings near midnight.
“Hualien has had a lot of earthquakes, so many people know what to do when an earthquake comes – stay inside, find a safe structure,” said Lin Chin-Ching, 47, who reopened his beer-and-barbecue restaurant in Hualien after cleaning up the broken kitchen utensils. “We did that.” But he said, many people’s livelihoods will be hurt.
“My restaurant is very busy because a lot of other people are messy and haven’t cleaned up yet,” he said. Of greater concern, Mr. Lin added, is the destruction of roads and tunnels, which could devastate a local economy that relies heavily on tourists. “A lot of buildings have to be checked for damage that you can’t see. That’s going to take time, too.”
Rescuers freed dozens of people trapped elsewhere, including six people from a mining site on Thursday morning. Three hikers were killed by falling rocks on a trail in Taroko National Park, a popular site famous for a gorge that cuts through mountains that rise steeply from the coast.
The county government has opened evacuation areas where people can take shelter, such as high school gymnasiums and athletic fields, as aftershocks continue to flow through the area.
Derik du Plessis, a 44-year-old South African who has lived in Hualien for 17 years, described the chaos and panic on the streets after the earthquake as people rushed to pick up their children and check on their houses.
Roads were blocked, he said, and walls crashed into cars. “Right now people seem to have calmed down, but there are a lot of people sitting on the road,” he said. “They don’t want to go into the buildings because there’s still a lot of shaking.”
Lin Jung, 36, who runs a store that sells sneakers in Hualien, said he was at home getting ready to take his 16-month-old baby to a medical appointment when the earthquake struck. At first it felt like a series of small shocks, he said, then “all of a sudden it became a big earthquake shaking up and down.” The glass cover of the ceiling lamp fell and broke. “All I can do is protect my baby,” she said.
The earthquake also shook the west coast of the island, collapsing a building in Changhua County. Many rail services were halted while authorities inspected the tracks for damage.
The earthquake struck during the morning commute, just before 8 a.m., at a depth of 22 miles, according to the US Geological Survey.
Taiwan is at the intersection of the Philippine Sea tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate, making it vulnerable to seismic activity. Hualien sits on several active faults, and 17 people died in an earthquake there in 2018.
The earthquake hit Taiwan as many people here were preparing to travel for Tomb Sweeping Day on Thursday, when, across the Chinese-speaking world, people mourn the dead and make offerings at their graves. The holiday weekend usually sees an increase in travel as people visit family across Taiwan.
Authorities are working to restore train services to Hualien and two-way traffic on highways in the region, Wang Guo-cai, the island’s transport minister, said at a news conference.
TSMC, the world’s largest maker of advanced semiconductors, briefly evacuated workers from its factories but said they would return to work in a few hours. The company said its safety systems were working normally and it was still assessing the impact. TSMC’s fabs are clustered along Taiwan’s west coast, far from the epicenter of the earthquake.
All personnel are safe, the company said. However, chip manufacturing is extremely precise and even short shutdowns can cost millions of dollars.
Taiwan’s earthquake preparedness has evolved over the past few decades in response to some of the island’s largest and most destructive earthquakes. In 1999, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in Taiwan killed nearly 2,500 people.
That quake, which struck about 90 miles south-southwest of Taipei, was the second deadliest in the island’s history, according to the USGS and Central Weather Administration. More than 10,000 people were injured and more than 100,000 houses were destroyed or damaged.
In the years since, authorities have established urban search-and-rescue teams and opened several emergency medical operation centers, among other measures. And in 2018, after an earthquake in the eastern coastal city of Hualien killed 17 people and partially collapsed several buildings, the government ordered. a wave of building inspections.
Taiwan is also improving early warning system for earthquakes since the 1980s. And two years ago, this launched new building codes which, among other things, requires owners of vulnerable buildings to install ad hoc structural reinforcements.
Paul Mozur and Siyi Zhao contributed reporting.
