Taiwan is recurrently hit by earthquakes, because the island lies close to the junction of two tectonic plates.
Taiwan doesn’t subject tsunami warnings except a quake registers at greater than magnitude 7.0.
The US Geological Survey downgraded this temblor from an preliminary estimate of magnitude 6.9 down to six.6, then again as much as 6.7.
It additionally revised the depth from an preliminary 10 kilometers (6 miles) to 24 km.
The quake hit off Taiwan’s east coast however was felt over a lot of the island.
An AFP reporter felt her constructing shake a couple of minutes after 1:40 am (1740 GMT) in Taipei’s Zhongshan district. Authorities-issued alerts despatched folks’s cell telephones blaring.
Native information channel TVBS reported that folks within the japanese metropolis of Hualien – which noticed a lethal quake in 2018 – fled to the streets from a twelfth flooring constructing.
In Taiwan’s southern Kaohsiung metropolis – the island’s third most populous – Mayor Chen Chi-mai posted on Fb that the epicentre was within the sea off the coast of Hualien.
“To this point there isn’t a harm,” he stated.
Twitter and Fb lit up with folks posting their reactions on being woken up by the quake, with some exhibiting movies of their ceiling lamps swaying.
“The chandelier on my ceiling shook for greater than three minutes and did not cease,” native reporter Chao Li wrote on Fb.
“It is shaking a lot, it scares folks to demise,” he stated in an accompanying video.
The Hualien county authorities stated the quake had occurred close to their metropolis, which is often a vacationer draw with its seashores and scenic hikes.
“The quake was felt throughout Taiwan,” the county authorities stated on its official Fb web page.
“Please don’t panic if there are aftershocks and we urge the residents be ready for catastrophe prevention,” it added.
Taiwan’s Central Climate Bureau stated an preliminary quake of 5.4-magnitude had occurred at 1:06 am.
It was adopted by the magnitude 6.6 quake at 1:41 am, and two minutes later got here a 6.1-magnitude aftershock, the bureau reported.
Some earthquakes of 6.0 or extra can show lethal, though a lot depends upon the place the quake strikes and at what depth.
However the USGS gave a “inexperienced” rating to the menace posed by the newest quake, predicting a low chance of both casualties or harm.
The final time Taiwan skilled a quake of an analogous magnitude was in January, when a 6.2 quake hit its east coast. However there have been no stories of widespread harm or accidents.
A 6.4-magnitude quake in 2018 hit Hualien, a scenic vacationer hotspot, which left 17 folks lifeless and 300 injured.