No casualties or damage were reported in Taiwan as of yesterday morning after an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale rattled Taiwan at 11:51pm the previous evening, according to the Central Weather Bureau (CWB).
Taiwan was spared from the major devastation that could have resulted from such a strong earthquake because it was centered far out to sea and deep -- with an epicenter located around 185km east of the city of Keelung and an undersea depth of 181.4km, said Kuo Kai-wen (郭鎧紋), director of the CWB Seismology Center.
The temblor was the strongest earthquake felt in Taiwan so far this year, equivalent to the energy released by the explosion of 16 atomic bombs at once, said Kuo.
The quake was felt almost everywhere around the island. It had an intensity of 3.0 in the eastern counties of Ilan, Hualien and Taitung, Taichung County in central Taiwan and Miaoli County in western Taiwan; 2.0 in Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu counties in northern Taiwan and Nantou County in central Taiwan; 1.0 in Keelung City and Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties in southern Taiwan.
There was no danger of a tsunami because of the depth of the quake, Kuo added.
Taiwan sits on the Circum-Pacific Belt, which encompasses fault lines stretching from the coast of Chile to California and around through Japan and Taiwan. The belt is, along with the large European Alpida Belt, responsible for 95 out of every 100 earthquakes that occur around the world.
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