Strong earthquake rocks Taiwan, prompts tsunami warning for southern Japan
Global News
A tsunami of up to three meters was expected to reach Japan's southwestern coast late Wednesday morning, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
An earthquake off the coast Taiwan with a magnitude of 7.2 rocked the entire island on Wednesday morning, collapsing buildings in a southern city and creating a tsunami that washed ashore on southern Japanese islands.
A five-story building in lightly populated Hualien appeared heavily damaged, collapsing its first floor and leaving the rest leaning at a 45-degree angle.
In the capital, Taipei, tiles fell from older buildings and within some newer office complexes. The strong quake knocked out power in several parts of the city, according to a Reuters witness.
Train service was suspended across the island of 23 million people, as was subway service in Taipei. But things quickly returned to normal in the capital, with children going to school and the morning commute appearing to be normal.
Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency gave the magnitude as 7.2 while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.4. It struck at 7:58 a.m. about 18 kilometers south-southwest of Hualien and was about 35 kilometers (21 miles) deep.
The head of Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring bureau, Wu Chien-fu, said effects were detected as far away as Kinmen, a Taiwanese-controlled island off the coast of China. Multiple aftershocks were felt in Taipei in the hour after the initial quake.
Japan issued an evacuation advisory for the coastal areas of the southern prefecture of Okinawa, which is made up of several small islands. Tsunami waves of up to three metres were expected to reach large areas of Japan’s southwestern coast, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, which put the quake magnitude at 7.5.
