The Central Weather Bureau on Saturday urged the public to be alert to possible magnitude 4 or higher earthquake aftershocks over the next two weeks, after southern Taiwan was hit by a series of temblors since late Friday night.
Starting at 9:58pm on Friday, Kaohsiung and Pingtung County were rocked by nine quakes with magnitudes ranging from 3.5 to 5.3.
The strongest of the earthquakes hit Pingtung at 1:31pm on Saturday, with the epicenter 28.8km northeast of the county hall at a depth of 10.3km, the bureau’s Seismological Center said.
Photo courtesy of the Central Weather Bureau
Based on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, which is used to gauge the degree of vibration people can feel and the amount of damage, the earthquake measured level 4 in Pingtung and in Kaohsiung.
Seismology Center director Chen Kuo-chang (陳國昌) cited past records as suggesting that when a quake of magnitude 5 or stronger hits Taiwan, aftershocks of magnitude 4 or higher usually occur in the following two weeks.
He urged the public to stay alert.
The magnitude 5.3 earthquake took place north of the Chaochou Fault (潮州斷層) in Pingtung County, Chen said, adding that he did not rule out that the temblor might be connected to that specific fault.
No major damage or injuries were immediately reported from the earthquakes.
The roof of a brick home in Tainan’s Madou District (麻豆), which is adjacent to Kaohsiung, collapsed.
The owners were not home at the time.
Two leading contract chipmakers said their plants in the temblor-hit areas remained unscathed and operations stayed normal.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, which owns two 12-inch wafer fabs, one 8-inch fab, and a high-end integrated circuit packaging and testing plant in Tainan, said that as the highest intensity of these temblors hit only level 2 or 3, those plants were not affected.
United Microelectronics Corp, a smaller contract chipmaker, which runs a 12-inch fab in Tainan, also said its operations in the south remained normal.
Taiwan Power Co, the nation’s sole state-owned electricity supplier, said its nuclear power plants operated normally despite the earthquakes.
It would continue to watch for subsequent temblors and closely monitor the safety of the nuclear reactors, it said.
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