A series of strong earthquakes, the largest of them of magnitude 6.3have shaken the east coast of Taiwan during Monday afternoon and early Tuesday, causing the partial collapse of two buildings in the eastern city of Hualien.
According to images broadcast by the state news agency CNA, a hotel and a block of flats collapsed partially in this town, where Twenty days ago another earthquake of magnitude 7.2 occurredthe most intense recorded on the island in the last 25 years.
The hotel was currently undergoing renovations and the residential building, which suffered serious damage after the April 3 earthquake, was unoccupied at the time of the earthquakes, so there were no casualties or injuries, local authorities reported.
The tremors, which coincided with a day of heavy rainhave also caused landslides and rocks on several roads in Hualien County.
Consequently, the county government has announced the closure of schools and offices in the region and asked residents not to approach “dangerous” buildings.
He first of this series of strong earthquakeswhich had a magnitude of 5.5, It occurred at 17:08 local time Monday in Shoufeng Township, Hualien County, at a depth of ten kilometers.
Since then, and until 09:30 on Tuesday, the Central Meteorological Agency (CWA) counted around 200 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.
In the capital there were also the shocks of these two earthquakes: Taipei buildings shook strongly, moving doors and windows and causing objects to fall in the middle of the night.
Aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake
The director of the CWA Seismological Center, Wu Chien-fu, stated this Tuesday that This series of earthquakes were aftershocks of the April 3 earthquakewhile acknowledging that more tremors are expected in the coming months, according to the agency CNA.
The earthquake of April 3, whichIt 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 energy is only now beginning to be released in the south, the expert said.
Taiwan sits at the confluence of the Philippine and Eurasian plates, so earthquakes are frequent on the island.
