A 7.2-magnitude earthquake, the biggest to strike Taiwan in 25 years, shook the island country on Wednesday, leaving at least seven dead and over 700 wounded.
Four individuals perished in the hilly, thinly populated eastern county of Hualien, close to the epicentre, according to the Taiwanese authorities.
According to the Hualien Fire Department, 77 individuals are still trapped, some of them in fallen structures. The damage to more than 100 structures was also mentioned.
As people were heading to work and school in Hualien, where the earthquake occurred close offshore at approximately 8 a.m. (0000 GMT), images from Taiwanese television stations showed buildings at dangerous angles.
Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration reports that the epicentre of the earthquake was located at a depth of 15.5 km (9.6 miles), just off the east coast.
It was really potent. The home seemed like it was about to collapse,” Chang Yu-lin, a 60-year-old hospital employee in Taipei, said.
President-elect Lai Ching-te, who takes office in a month, is scheduled to visit Hualien later on Wednesday, according to the presidential office.
While enormous landslides caused by the tremors ripped down hillsides nearby, video showed rescuers using ladders to lift people out of windows.
There was also strong shaking felt on Taipei’s subway system, which closed briefly to evacuate passengers, though service resumed soon after on most lines.
Several modest tsunami waves were reported to have reached sections of the southern prefecture of Okinawa by Japan’s meteorological service, which said that the earthquake’s magnitude was 7.7.
Residents in coastal regions of various provinces were advised to evacuate to higher ground by the Philippine Seismology Agency.
