Strong quake rattles the nation

A strong magnitude 7 earthquake rattled the nation and injured two people at 12:08pm yesterday.

The Central Weather Bureau said that the quake's epicenter was located in the Pacific 109km east of Ilan County and 58.8km underground. The magnitude was 5 in Ilan, 4 in Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Taitung and Yunlin, 3 in Hsinchu and Nantou and 1 in Kaohsiung City.

"It started to shake up and down then later became parallel. The entire duration was about 30 seconds," said Kuo Kai-wen (郭鎧紋), director of the bureau's Earthquake Center.

Kuo said that the quake's power was equivalent to about 16 atomic bombs yesterday. By comparison, the 921 earthquake in 1999 was 7.3 in magnitude and similar to the power of 46 atomic bombs.

"Strong earthquakes like this might happen again in the next four weeks or so," Kuo said. "We should keep our heads up for those potential quakes."

In Ilan, a piece of the ceiling at the Ilan Farmers' Association fell and injured Chiayi farmer Lo Shun-yi (羅順益), who was visiting an agricultural exhibition. He was hospitalized with a minor scratch on his head.

In Taoyuan, an aluminum water tank on the roof of a restaurant was sheared off by the quake and the tank hit Lien Shu-mei (連淑美), who was eating and sitting outside the restaurant. Doctors said that Lien was hit by the tank on her head, waist and legs badly but none of her bones were broken.

Local police in Keelung said two seven-story buildings in the city slightly "kissed" each other during the quake and broken tiles fell to the ground. The accident scared pedestrians but injured no one.

In Kaohsiung County, firefighters had to put out a fire, allegedly caused by the quake, at an Internet cafe in Fengshan City. When the earthquake occurred, employees immediately evacuated its customers but gas pipelines broke loose during the quake and caused the fire. The fire did not injure anybody, but destroyed a few computers.

In Taipei City, Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world, did not suffer any damage, but 20 workers were briefly stuck inside an elevator when elevators were shut off when the earthquake began. Technicians turned the elevators back on a few minutes later.

Taipei 101 Construction Department Assistant Manager Yeh Yen-shun (葉炎順) said that workers are using temporary elevators for construction. If an earthquake takes place, technicians immediately shut them off.

Yesterday's earthquake also forced Taipei City's MRT system to stop trains, evacuate all passengers and halt services for more than an hour. But the subway system went back into service at 1:20pm after all security checks were completed.

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