TAIPEI, Taiwan: A magnitude 6.7 earthquake that struck off the coast of Taiwan early Wednesday rattled structures and roused folks from their sleep, leaving one injured and inflicting a half-constructed bridge within the island’s east to cave in. Taiwan is steadily hit by means of earthquakes because it lies close to the junction of 2 tectonic plates. It does no longer factor tsunami warnings until a quake registers at greater than magnitude 7.0.

America Geological Survey to begin with estimated the 1:41 am (1741 GMT Tuesday) quake to be magnitude 6.9, yet downgraded it to six.6 sooner than in the end assessing it again as much as 6.7. It additionally revised the intensity from an preliminary 10 kilometers (six miles) to 24 km. The quake hit off Taiwan’s east coast-near the island’s scenic vacationer town Hualien-but was once felt over a lot of the island.

Executive-issued indicators despatched folks’s mobile phones blaring, and social media lit up with folks posting their reactions on being woken up. “The chandelier on my ceiling shook for greater than 3 mins and didn’t prevent,” native reporter Chao Li wrote on Fb.

“It’s shaking such a lot, it scares folks to dying,” he mentioned in an accompanying video. An AFP reporter additionally felt their construction in Taipei’s Zhongshan district shake a couple of mins simply after 1:41 am. Native media on Wednesday ran pictures from grocery shops that confirmed pieces flying off the cabinets when the quake hit.

Taiwan’s Nationwide Fireplace Company showed on its respectable Fb web page {that a} guy within the southern county of Taitung was once hit by means of glass and were despatched to clinic. A bridge below development in Hualien had additionally collapsed yet there have been no accidents as site visitors was once no longer allowed across the space, the company mentioned.

Widespread for its seashores and mountain climbing spots, Hualien noticed a dangerous 6.4-magnitude quake in 2018 which left 17 folks lifeless and 300 injured. “Please don’t panic if there are aftershocks and we urge the citizens to be ready for crisis prevention,” the county govt mentioned in a commentary on its respectable Fb web page.

There have been about 150 aftershocks, most commonly below 3.6 magnitude, following the preliminary quake, mentioned Chen Kuo-chang, head of Taiwan’s Central Climate Bureau’s Seismological Heart. Earthquakes of 6.0 or extra can end up fatal, even though a lot depends upon the place it moves and at what intensity. The closing time Taiwan skilled a quake of a an identical magnitude was once in January, when a 6.2 tremor hit its east coast. There was once no standard harm or accidents. – AFP