No fewer than seven people were killed and more than 700 injured by a powerful earthquake in Taiwan on Wednesday, April 3, 2024.

The earthquake damaged dozens of buildings in Taiwan.

Officials said the earthquake was the strongest to shake the island in decades, and warned of more tremors in the days ahead.

“The earthquake is close to land and it’s shallow. It’s felt all over Taiwan and offshore islands,” said Wu Chien-fu, director of Taipei’s Central Weather Administration’s Seismology Center.

Strict building regulations and widespread public disaster awareness appear to have staved off a major catastrophe for the earthquake-prone island, which lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.

Wu said the earthquake was the strongest since a 7.6-magnitude struck in September 1999, killing about 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.

Wednesday’s magnitude-7.4 earthquake hit just before 8:00 a.m. local time (0000 GMT), with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) putting the epicentre 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of Taiwan’s Hualien City, at a depth of 34.8 kilometres.

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Three people among a group of seven on an early-morning hike through the hills that surround the city were crushed to death by boulders loosened by the earthquake, officials said.

Separately, a truck driver died when his vehicle was hit by a landslide as it approached a tunnel in the area.

The National Fire Agency said all the deaths occurred in Hualien county, adding that so far 736 people had been injured in the quake, without specifying how seriously.

Social media was awash with shared videos and images from around the country of buildings swaying as the quake struck.

Dramatic images were shown on local TV of multi-storey structures in Hualien and elsewhere tilting after the quake ended, while a warehouse in New Taipei City crumbled.

The mayor there said more than 50 survivors had been successfully plucked from the ruins of the structure.

Local TV channels showed bulldozers clearing rocks along roads to Hualien, a mountain-ringed coastal city of around 100,000 people that has been cut off by landslides.

“It was shaking violently, the paintings on the wall, my TV and liquor cabinet fell,” AFP quoted one man in Hualien as saying.

President Tsai Ing-wen called for local and central government agencies to coordinate with each other, and said that the military would also be providing support.

The Star