Southern Taiwan was rocked by a magnitude 5.2 earthquake at 4:51am yesterday.
Central Weather Bureau (CWB) data showed that the quake occured in Kaohsiung’s Liouguei District (六龜) 16.5km below ground.
The greatest intensity generated by the earthquake was a local intensity of 5 in Pintung County’s Sandimen Township (三地門).
A local intensity of 3 was detected in Kaohsiung and Tainan as well as in Pingtung and Taitung counties.
The earthquake was followed by magnitude 3.6 and magnitude 4.6 aftershocks.
CWB Seismology Center Director Kuo Kai-wen (郭鎧紋) said that the epicenter was located near the Chaochou Fault (潮州斷層), which is a north-south fault line of about 85km between Kaohsiung and Pingtung.
However, he said the earthquake was not caused by a movement of the fault.
“If the earthquake were caused by the movement of the fault, the depth of the hypocenter would be about 10km. The earthquake’s hypocenter was about 16.5km underground and could not have been caused by the fault,” he said.
Kuo said that earthquakes have been happening quite frequently in southern Taiwan following the earthquake in Tainan’s Jiasian District (甲仙) on March 4, 2010.
He said the hypocenter of yesterday’s earthquake was on the same earthquake belt as the earthquake in Jiasian as well as the one in Kaohsiung’s Meinong (美濃) in February.
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