Taiwan experienced its strongest earthquake in 25 years, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake that was felt as far away as Hong Kong in China.
On April third, people across Taiwan felt the shaking and jolting of their homeland as it was reported that mountain sides were collapsing and buildings were swaying. Even In all the chaos, Taiwan has seemed unscathed from the event and many things have returned to normal even only a day after the earthquake.
Renewed building codes in 1999 are credited with saving many lives after Taiwan’s 7.6 magnitude Chi Chi earthquake caused over $300 billion in damages and over 2,400 people killed. After this tragedy, the Taiwanese government made it a priority to prepare and upgrade in the event of an earthquake like that in the future, so it was required that all buildings were renovated and new buildings followed suit to the building codes.
“I’ve grown accustomed to earthquakes. But today was the first time I was scared to tears by an earthquake.” Taiwan local Hsien-hsuen Keng, who lives on the fifth floor of a residential building in the city of Taipei, said.
Fortunately, these codes saved many lives last Wednesday. Only nine people were reported dead, and compared to a similar magnitude earthquake in Turkey and Syria that killed nearly 50,000 people, buildings made with the proper precautions can drastically change the outcome of a powerful earthquake.
The most notable infrastructure failure of the earthquake is right in the heart of the city of Hualien, where a 10-story brick building is now leaning at a 45 degree angle over the city center. To keep the building from collapsing any further, debris and rubble was piled underneath it as efforts to correct the building are underway.
In total, it is reported that the damage costs are between $5-8 billion all across the nation, which is a fraction of what the damage was from the Chi-chi earthquake, which was $300 Billion.
“I know we just had an earthquake in Newtown and we all thought that was scary, so I could only imagine what an earthquake that powerful feels like.” NHS junior Cole Sgagliardich said.
Many of the 9 fatalities were caused by rock and landslides causing loose rubble to fall onto unsuspecting pedestrians. Four hikers that were hiking within Taroko National Park were struck by falling rock and killed. Only one fatality was from infrastructure failure.
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