Major Earthquakes - 7.4 (7.2) Mag and 6.4 Mag near Hualien, Taiwan

[Astronuc]

M 7.4 - 18 km SSW of Hualien City, Taiwan​

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000m9g4/executive

• 2024-04-02 23:58:11 (UTC)
• 23.819°N 121.562°E
• 34.8 km depth

M 6.4 - 11 km NE of Hualien City, Taiwan​

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000m9gc/executive

• 2024-04-03 00:11:25 (UTC)
• 24.064°N 121.672°E
• 12.6 km depth

Many aftershocks reported along the east coast. Some buildings collapse, fatalities and injuries reported.

Three aftershocks registered 5.7 Mag NW of Hualien, in close proximity.

 

[berkeman]

The fatalities are especially bad news. I bet a lot of IC Fab houses tripped offline because of those quakes...

https://abc7news.com/74-earthquake-strikes-eastern-coast-of-taiwan/14608424/

 

[nsaspook]

Those tilted buildings are crazy.

 

[berkeman]

Those tilted buildings are crazy.

Yeah, but I'm actually really impressed. If the building tilts way over and does not collapse, that saves lives. From watching the news today, it sounds like building codes are pretty earthquake-aware in Taiwan, and the tilted buildings were built to older codes and not retrofitted (but still did pretty well considering how severe the earthquake magnitude was).

 

[nsaspook]

 

[berkeman]

it sounds like building codes are pretty earthquake-aware in Taiwan

Indeed. This is a nice article about how Taiwan has been preparing for the inevitable earthquakes common in their region:

Hualien, Taiwan CNN —

Wu was preparing breakfast for guests at the small hotel he runs in Taiwan’s Hualien County when the shelves around him shook violently and the mountain behind his house roared.

Fearing the building would collapse, he rushed his guests to safety outdoors. Across the river, steep slopes were slipping from the mountains, the air swallowed by clouds of dust.

But Wu’s house suffered little damage from Wednesday’s 7.4 magnitude tremor, Taiwan’s most powerful in 25 years, something he attributes to a wider push to make the island more quake-resistant.

“Our government conducted a comprehensive review of building codes after the 1999 earthquake, and all buildings going up must use new technologies that make them more resilient to earthquakes,” he says.

Fifteen years ago when he started building his two-story guesthouse near the entrance to Taroko Gorge – a national park famed for its steep, marble-walled canyons – Wu had to get government approval of its earthquake-preparedness.

And experts say changes like this have helped the tremor-prone island avoid mass casualties in quakes like the one that hit on Wednesday.

“I feel very lucky,” says Wu of the remarkably low-level damage wrought by the massive quake. “It’s not too bad.”

<<snip>>