(Taipei) The island of Taiwan was hit by new earthquakes at dawn on Tuesday, the largest, occurring in the east, reaching a magnitude of 6.3, according to the local meteorological agency.
It said a magnitude 6 earthquake occurred at 2:26 a.m. Tuesday and was followed six minutes later by another of magnitude 6.3 in the eastern region of Hualien. .
The American Institute of Geophysics, the USGS, for its part estimated the magnitude of the first as 6.1 and that of the second as 6.
AFP journalists in the capital Taipei felt the tremors.
“I was washing my hands and suddenly felt what I thought was dizziness,” Olivier Bonifacio, a tourist staying in the Taiwanese capital, in the Da’an district, told AFP.
“I walked into my room and noticed the building was rocking, I heard the desk creak,” he said.
Early Tuesday morning, Hualien firefighters said crews had been dispatched to the scene. At 2:54 a.m., they issued a statement emphasizing that no casualties had yet been reported.
Frequent earthquakes
The day before, a first earthquake, of magnitude 5.5, occurred around 5:08 p.m. and was also felt in Taipei.
It was followed, according to AFP journalists, by a series of aftershocks, the most intense around 10:15 p.m.
The Taiwan Meteorological Agency put the magnitude of the latter at 5.9 and its depth of 8.6 km, while the USGS spoke of a magnitude of 5.8.
“We had the impression of witnessing one of the strongest earthquakes or one of the strongest aftershocks since the big earthquake at the beginning of the month”, the 7.4 magnitude earthquake of April 3, including the The epicenter was in the Hualien region and left at least 17 dead and more than 1,100 injured, an AFP employee testified, while another journalist said the building had oscillated.
As of 10:30 p.m., no damage from the earthquake had been reported, firefighters assured.
The island of Taiwan is regularly prey to seismic tremors, because it is located near the junction of two tectonic plates.
That of April 3 was followed by hundreds of aftershocks which caused landslides in the surroundings of Hualien.
This earthquake was the most serious since the 7.6 magnitude earthquake which struck Taiwan in September 1999 and killed 2,400 people – the worst disaster in the modern history of this island.
Stricter anti-seismic regulations, including in building standards, and widespread public awareness appear to have averted a major disaster on April 3.