There is a Taiwanese saying that “when times are bad, people behave in strange ways.” Last week, a person surnamed Wang (王) spread a rumor on social media saying that a magnitude 7.2 earthquake would occur in the Chianan area in southern Taiwan between Tuesday and Thursday last week, most likely between 12am and 4am on Wednesday last week.
The rumor quickly spread across the nation, causing widespread confusion. Coincidentally, an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale indeed occurred just before midnight on Tuesday last week on the Milun Fault in the Hualien area, which sits on the northeastern earthquake belt.
With an intensity level of 7, the earthquake caused severe damage to several buildings along the fault line, killing 16 people and injuring 285.
Seeing the rumor spread without any scientific support, with some panic thrown in, scientists do not know whether to cry or fret.
News spread that Wang’s prediction, which lacks any scientific basis, was correct and some people believed it.
The locally made Formosat-5 satellite, which travels in a sun-synchronous orbit, took 15 years of research and NT$5.7 billion (US$194.15 million) to build. It is equipped with a cube-shaped advanced ionospheric probe that receives and analyzes data.
Last year, the probe detected a 50 percent increase in electron density in the ionosphere above Iran and Iraq about seven to nine days before a magnitude 7.3 earthquake occurred on the Iran-Iraq border.
Formosat-5 passes above Taiwan once every two days, and five days before the Hualien earthquake, it detected a decrease in electron density in the ionosphere above Hualien.
Perhaps electric charges sometimes accumulate as a result of the movement of tectonic plates, but the data recorded before the earthquake were not clear, and therefore they were not significant enough to warn the public and evacuate residents.
Disturbances in the ionosphere do not always mean there is an earthquake brewing. Even though the disturbances in the electron density above Iran and Iraq were clear, they were not clear enough to warrant a disaster warning.
There are estimates that an earthquake probability warning system can be developed in about a decade.
Taiwan still has a long way to go before it will have science-based earthquake prevention and it will be an arduous journey that requires a lot of caution.
Considering how easily Taiwanese panic, sending evacuation messages would only cause a greater disaster.
Comments by lay people who lack any kind of scientific knowledge could be treated as forecasts, and in that case there would be no need for modern quantitative science and scientific instruments — people would only need to pray to the old gods and ask for divine opinion.
Ninety percent of all earthquakes occur in the countries around the Pacific Ocean. Governments and academics are devoting themselves to prediction research, since it is an issue that poses a threat to tens of millions of people.
Such fields inevitably attract the attention of people who act on rumor. Many media outlets that are not willing to do their research or report fairly and only want to create more news join in and offer a stage for these “earthquake experts.”
These news outlets no longer possess the trustworthiness and credibility of the fourth estate. As rumor-mongering is becoming a sickness, the nation needs more people to come forward and offer scientific explanations.
Lai Ming-huang is an engineer who holds a doctorate in engineering from National Cheng Kung University.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations