An underwater earthquake of magnitude greater than 7 occurred on Wednesday April 3 near Taiwan, causing tsunami warnings in Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines.
“Two buildings have collapsed and people may be trapped,” in Hualien, a Taiwan city near the epicenter of the quake, a local fire official said.
The risk of a tsunami has “largely passed”, announced the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, a regional observatory based in Hawaii (United States), shortly after an alert was issued. Waves up to three meters high were feared in Okinawa, southwest Japan, but the alert was later downgraded to a warning.
A tsunami alert was also issued in the Philippines, with orders to evacuate the coastline in twenty-three of the archipelago's provinces. The capital Manila is not affected.
The earthquake struck very close to the east coast of Taiwan just before 8 a.m. local time (2 a.m. in Paris). Its magnitude was estimated at 7.5 by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), 7.4 by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and 7.2 by the Taiwan Meteorological Agency (CWA). It took place at shallow depth, according to these agencies. Several aftershocks followed one another in the same area.
“The earthquake is close to the coast and shallow. It is felt throughout Taiwan and neighboring islands... It is the strongest in 25 years, since the 1999 earthquake,” Taipei Seismological Center director Wu Chien-fu told reporters. A 7.6 magnitude earthquake killed 2,400 people in September 1999, the worst disaster in Taiwan's modern history.
“No panic.”
“It was definitely the biggest I've felt in my life and it lasted maybe 30 seconds, although it seemed to last much longer,” said Phil Smith, a Briton living in Taipei . “I heard a few emergency vehicle sirens but there’s definitely no panic,” he continued.
Located on the border of several tectonic plates, Taiwan and Japan are frequently affected by earthquakes. To limit risks as much as possible, both countries apply some of the strictest construction standards in the world.
In Japan, the Fukushima disaster (north-east) in March 2011, which left around 20,000 people dead or missing, is still remembered. A 9.0 magnitude underwater earthquake caused a gigantic tsunami on the country's northeastern coast, which also caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
The Noto Peninsula, in central Japan, also suffered a magnitude 7.5 earthquake on January 1, which left more than 240 people dead, notably due to the collapse of many old wooden houses.
