By Abimbola Ogunnaike
No fewer than nine people were confirmed dead and more than 800 injured Wednesday, 3 April by a powerful earthquake in Taiwan that damaged dozens of buildings and prompted tsunami warnings that extended to Japan and the Philippines before being lifted.
Officials said the quake was the strongest to shake the island in decades, and warned of more tremors in the days ahead.
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The Director of Taipei’s Central Weather Administration’s Seismology CenterM Wu Chien-fu, said “The earthquake is close to land and it’s shallow. It’s felt all over Taiwan and offshore islands/”
“The earthquake is close to land and it’s shallow. It’s felt all over Taiwan and offshore islands,” Chien-fu added.
He said the quake was the strongest since a 7.6-magnitude struck in September 1999, killing around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.
Strict building regulations and widespread public disaster awareness appear to have staved off a major catastrophe for the earthquake-prone island, which lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.
Wednesday’s magnitude-7.4 quake hit just before 8:00 am local time (0000 GMT), with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) putting the epicentre 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of Taiwan’s Hualien City, at a depth of 34.8 kilometres.
Three people among a group of seven on an early-morning hike through the hills that surround the city were crushed to death by boulders loosened by the earthquake, officials said.
Separately, the drivers of a truck and a car died when their vehicles were hit by tumbling boulders, while another man died at a mine.
