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.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
An inauguration ceremony was held yesterday for the Danjiang Bridge, the world’s longest single-mast asymmetric cable-stayed bridge, ahead of its official opening to traffic on Tuesday, marking a major milestone after nearly three decades of planning and construction. At the ceremony in New Taipei City attended by President William Lai (賴清德), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the bridge was hailed as both an engineering landmark and a long-awaited regional transport link connecting Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里)
RSS