The government yesterday activated the Central Emergency Operations Center (CEOC) after the Central Weather Administration (CWA) issued a tsunami alert following a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the east coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
This was the first time that the government activated an emergency response to potential damage that could be caused by a tsunami. In the past, the CEOC generally began to operate when the nation was affected by typhoons or earthquakes.
Prior to yesterday, the CWA had also issued tsunami alerts after a magnitude 9 earthquake in Japan on March 11, 2011, and a magnitude 7.1 earthquake off the coast of Hualien on April 3 last year.
Photo: CNA
Yesterday’s alert applied to all coastlines around the nation.
Waves on the southeast and southwest coasts could reach 0.3m to 1m, while those elsewhere along the coastline were forecast to be less than 0.3m, according to the alert.
The tsunami alert came as southwest Taiwan — particularly Tainan, and Yunlin and Chiayi counties — was struggling to recover from the heavy infrastructure damage caused by torrential rain brought by the southwest monsoon.
Photo courtesy of the Water Resources Agency.
A simulation conducted by the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction showed that the areas that could be hit by tsunami included Tainan, Kaohsiung and New Taipei City, as well as Chiayi, Pingtung, Taitung, Yilan and Hualien counties.
Disaster relief officials said during a CEOC briefing that the Ministry of National Defense and the National Air Service Corps have helicopters on standby for rescue missions, while the Coast Guard Administration would patrol fishing ports and other coastal facilities, urging people to move away from the coastline.
Meanwhile, the Fisheries Agency was in charge of reminding fishers working in waters near Taiwan and in the north Pacific to be on alert, the center said.
As of press time, the CWA had yet to lift the tsunami alert. However, its observation data as of 1:45pm showed that the highest wave reached 9cm, which was detected off the coast of Yilan County’s Suao Township (蘇澳).
Waves reached only 1cm to 2cm in Kaohsiung, and Taitung and Pingtung counties, CWA data showed.
Whale-watching boats in Hualien continued to operate despite the tsunami warning, with travelers on board saying that they barely felt any difference.
EVA Air, Starlux Airlines and Tigerair Taiwan announced the cancellation of flights to Sendai Airport in northeast Japan after the airport closed its runways following the earthquake.
The earthquake occurred due to the northwestward subduction of the Pacific tectonic plate beneath the Okhotsk microplate, the CWA said, adding that it was a typical subduction zone earthquake.
Seismic history data showed that, since 1900, 133 magnitude 7 and larger quakes have been recorded in the area around the epicenter, with 12 of them being larger than magnitude 8, the CWA said.
The largest was a magnitude 9 earthquake in 1952, which triggered a tsunami and generated 12m-high waves, it added.
The speed at which tsunami waves travel is related to the depth of the seafloor, CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) said.
The deeper the seafloor, the faster tsunami waves travel, he said.
Tsunami waves generated by a 5,000m deep earthquake could travel 800kph, while those triggered by a 500m deep quake could travel at 250kph, he said.
Tsunami waves build up in height when moving from deeper to shallower parts of the seafloor, Wu added
Cliffs along the nation’s east coast hinder the buildup of tsunami waves, while the undersea terrain off the southwest coast could facilitate such wave amplification, he said.
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