A tropical depression east of China’s Hainan Province is poised to strengthen into the second tropical storm of this year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday.
The storm, which could be upgraded into a tropical storm before noon today, would be named Maliksi, meaning “brisk” in Filipino.
As of 2pm, the tropical depression was moving northwest at 12kph, CWA data showed.
Photo courtesy of the Central Weather Administration
The moisture the storm carries is likely to move east and merge with a weather front that is closing in on Taiwan, bringing rain over the weekend, CWA forecaster Huang En-hung (黃恩鴻) said.
Tropical Storm Ewiniar is also nearby, although it would not affect Taiwan, the CWA said.
Meanwhile, the nation was struck by two earthquakes off the east coast yesterday morning, which measured above 5 on the Richter scale.
No injuries or damage were reported as of press time.
The larger of the two earthquakes — magnitude 5.3 — occurred at 9:11am, with the epicenter 22.8km northeast of Hualien County Hall at a depth of 17.9km.
Its intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, was level 4 in Hualien County, Nantou County and Taichung, CWA data showed.
At 7:54am, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck 12.7km east of Hualien County Hall at a depth of 17.1km. The intensity in Hualien County reached level 4.
CWA Seismological Center division chief Liao Che-wei (廖哲緯) told a news conference that the two earthquakes were all aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake, which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale.
Liao said that the scale and number of aftershocks has slowed significantly since the main quake, but sporadic tremors with a magnitude of 5 or above might still occur.
The CWA issued a presidential alert to residents in Hualien County for the magnitude 5.1 earthquake, and another alert to those in Yilan and Hualien counties for the magnitude 5.3 earthquake, Liao said.
The rupture zone from the Hualien earthquake on April 3 is about 70km long from south to north, Liao said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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