Strong earthquakes in Taiwan caused the partial collapse of several buildings

A series of strong earthquakesthe largest of them of magnitude 6.3, shook the east coast of taiwan during the afternoon of Monday, April 21 and the early hours of Tuesday, causing the partial collapse of four buildings in eastern Hualien County.

According to images broadcast by the state news agency CNA, a hotel and a block of flats partially collapsed in the capital of this county, where another earthquake of magnitude 7.2 occurred twenty days ago, the most intense recorded on the island in the last 25 years.
The hotel was currently undergoing renovations and the residential building, which was severely damaged after the earthquake on April 3, was unoccupied at the time of the earthquakes, so There were no victims or injuries, local authorities reported.

Likewise, a factory in Ji’an Township collapsed from the second to the first floor, while another home in the rural town of Shoufeng, whose residents had moved out after April 3, partially collapsed.

Los tremorswhat coincided with a day of heavy rainhave also caused landslides and rocks on several roads in Hualien County.

Consequently, the local government announced the closure of schools and offices in the region and asked residents not to approach “dangerous” buildings.

For her part, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen asked the population to avoid the mountains and remain alert for possible aftershocks.

“When an earthquake happens, don’t be afraid. Master the principle of ‘duck, cover and stay still’avoid head injuries and protect yourself,” the president wrote on her official Facebook account.

In another statement, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest chip manufacturer, said it had to evacuate staff from some of its factories in Taiwan due to the earthquakes this morning, although its operations were not affected. .

The first in this series of strong earthquakes, which had a magnitude of 5.5, occurred at 17:08 local time (0908 GMT) on Monday in Shoufeng, at a depth of ten kilometers.

Since then, and until 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, the Central Meteorological Agency (CWA) counted more than 250 tremors of different intensityincluding two of magnitude 6.0 and 6.3 recorded between 02:26 and 02:32, respectively, in the early hours of Tuesday.

This latest earthquake, the strongest since April 3, was felt throughout the island of Taiwan and had its maximum intensity (5 out of 7) in Hualien County.

The capital also experienced the shock of these two earthquakes: Taipei’s buildings shook strongly, moving doors and windows and causing objects to fall in the middle of the night.

The director of the CWA Seismological Center, Wu Chien-fu, said that this series of earthquakes They were aftershocks of the April 3 earthquakeadding that more tremors are expected in the coming months.

The earthquake of April 3, which caused 17 deaths and more than 1,100 injuries, has caused more than 1,000 aftershocks of different magnitudes in recent weeks, most of them located north of the epicenter of the earthquake, and is now beginning to be released energy in the south, said the expert.

Taiwan sits at the confluence of the Philippine and Eurasian plates, so earthquakes are frequent on the island.