The Central Weather Bureau yesterday said that people should be aware of possible damage caused by small earthquakes in the next few days.
The bureau said that 10 earthquakes shook the nation between Tuesday and yesterday morning, which it attributed to the expansion of the Okinawa Trough.
The largest temblor struck at 9:24pm on Tuesday, with the epicenter in Hualien County’s Shoufong Township (壽豐). The magnitude 5.5 quake was 20.3km deep and generated the largest intensity of level 6 in the county’s Tongmen area (銅門).
Three quakes occurred almost consecutively yesterday morning in Yilan County at 10:18am, 10:29am and 11:03am, with magnitudes of 4.3, 3.7 and 4.5 respectively.
The depths of the quakes were 7.3km, 10.8km and 6.1km respectively and they were most strongly felt by people in Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Yilan County.
Seismology Center director Kuo Kai-wen (郭鎧紋) said it might appear that earthquakes are happening more frequently than usual because of the sudden activity.
“However, if you look at the data, you will find there was no ‘felt earthquake’ recorded between Aug. 26 and Aug. 31,” he said. “It would seem normal if you consider the fact that 10 earthquakes happened in the past eight days.”
The trio of earthquakes in Yilan yesterday had their epicenters near Gueishan Island (龜山), and series of earthquakes often occur in the area because of the expansion of the Okinawa Trough, Kuo said.
Most of the temblors are unfelt earthquakes, he said.
“The felt earthquakes are generally small and happen closer to the surface,” he added.
Kuo said there might be small quakes over the next few days.
Among the 10 recorded quakes on Tuesday and yesterday, eight of them struck the east coast: three in Yilan, four in Hualien and one in Taitung. The others were centered in Kaohsiung and Tainan.
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