Map of the location of a magnitude 6.4 earthquake which shook
Taiwan early Thursday morning. (USGS)
Southern Taiwan was shaken by a powerful magnitude 6.4 earthquake early Thursday morning. The temblor which struck at 8:18am local time was centered in the nation’s Kaohsiung County approximately 155 miles south-southwest of Taipei.
The nation’s Central Weather Bureau says residents across the southwestern side of the island nation reported feeling significant shaking from the event while some residents on the northern end of the island near Taipei felt light shaking. In mainland China, shaking was reported in Xiamen and Fuzhou.
The U.S. Geological Survey reports that the quake was centered 14.4 miles under the surface of the earth and was centered 25 miles WNW of T'ai-tung or 40 miles ESE of T'ai-nan. The USGS said several significant aftershocks up to magnitude 4.8 have been recorded since the initial temblor.
Focus Taiwan News is reporting that a fire broke out in Chiayi City and a man was injured by a falling tree in the same county. Some cracking in buildings and bridges has been reported and power near the epicenter was cut off.
Earthquake Details
| Magnitude | 6.4 |
|---|---|
| Date-Time |
|
| Location | 22.903°N, 120.823°E |
| Depth | 23.1 km (14.4 miles) |
| Region | TAIWAN |
| Distances | 40 km (25 miles) WNW of T'ai-tung, Taiwan 60 km (40 miles) ESE of T'ai-nan, Taiwan 65 km (40 miles) ENE of Kao-hsiung, Taiwan 250 km (155 miles) SSW of T'AI-PEI, Taiwan |
| Location Uncertainty | horizontal +/- 4.6 km (2.9 miles); depth +/- 6.2 km (3.9 miles) |
| Parameters | NST=203, Nph=203, Dmin=27.2 km, Rmss=0.94 sec, Gp= 18°, M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=7 |
| Source |
|
| Event ID | us2010tkab |
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Comments
I'm in Taipei and we felt the quake pretty good here-worst one I've felt this far north. Normally we just sway, but today things started toppling over on shelves, which was new.
Subscribed to your articles. If you ever need anything from here, please let me know since we seem rather prone to natural disasters in this part of the world. For whatever reason, I seem to find myself in the middle of them when traveling too. We just finished up what was supposed to be a Cook Islands & French Polynesia cruise smack dab in the middle of the 4 recent cyclones. If that wasn't enough, we managed to escape Europe the day before the big storms hit last week.
I published a first person account of the earthquake here & included a slideshow of the earthquake museum that sits on the fault line from the 7.6 earthquake that devastated central Taiwan in 1999. Pretty amazing to see remnants of the collapsed school & sit thru a 7.6 quake simulation-hope we don't get a big one like that in Taipei!
Wow, Erin! Quite an experience I am sure! They continue to have some little aftershocks out there so be careful.
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