Building have collapsed in Taiwan after an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.5 struck on Wednesday morning, sparking a tsunami advisory in southern Japan.
Television footage showed collapsing buildings in the city of Hualien, on Taiwan’s eastern coast, with reports of people trapped inside amid continuing aftershocks.
A five-storey building in Hualien appeared heavily damaged, collapsing its first floor and leaving the rest leaning at a 45-degree angle. In the capital, Taipei, tiles fell from older buildings and within some newer office complexes.
The earthquake was Taiwan’s strongest since 1999, when a 7.7-magnitude quake 93 miles (150 km) south of Taipei killed 2,400 and injured 10,000.
The head of Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring bureau, Wu Chien-fu, said effects were detected as far away as Kinmen, a Taiwanese-controlled island off the coast of China. Multiple aftershocks were felt in Taipei in the hour after the initial quake.
Japanese media said the magnitude-7.5 quake could trigger waves as high as three metres in some areas of Okinawa prefecture, located roughly 1,000 miles south of Tokyo. Broadcaster NHK said an initial tsunami of 30cm had washed ashore on Yonaguni, a remote island just 110km from Taiwan, but warned that higher waves could follow.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake had a magnitude of 7.4, with its epicentre 18km (11 miles) south of Taiwan’s Hualien city at a depth of 34.8km. Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency gave the magnitude as 7.2.
The Philippines’ seismology agency on Wednesday issued a tsunami warning for coastal areas fronting the Pacific Ocean, saying they were expected to experience “high tsunami waves”. People in the coastal areas in several provinces were advised to immediately evacuate to higher grounds or move further inland.
“Owners of boats in harbours, estuaries or shallow coastal water of the above-mentioned provinces should secure their boats and move away from the waterfront,” it said in a statement. “Boats already at sea during this period should stay offshore in deep waters until further advised.”
Announcers on Japan’s public broadcaster NHK urged people not to go near the coast and to evacuate to higher areas, while warnings in English and Japanese appeared on the screen.
A 7.6-magnitude jolt hit Taiwan in September 1999, killing around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.
It has only been four months since a magnitude-7.6 quake and tsunami killed 244 people and caused widespread damage on the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture on the Japan Sea coast.
Japan’s biggest earthquake on record was a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea jolt in March 2011 off Japan’s northeast coast, which triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.
(This story, originally published by theguardian.com has not been edited by SLM staff)
