Taiwan Earthquake
 

Not sure if this is the right place to post for the most visibility (perhaps the Asia forum would be more fitting?) as I am sure there will be more threads on this. A search of 'earthquake' gave me nothing so...

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake has hit Taiwan. Thoughts and prayers are with everyone there.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/asia/taiwan-earthquake/

Thanks for posting.

I will indeed move this sad story to the Asia forum where most folks might expect to find it (while leaving a permanent redirect in Travel News so folks can also find your thread from there).

cblaisd
Moderator, Travel News

2016 Meinong Earthquake: Tainan is hit worse than Kaohsiung...
 

Search and rescue mission is currently ongoing in Tainan, 7 dead & 422 injured so far. (Linky to Central Weather Bureau Earthquake Report & Wikipedia linky). Meinong Earthquake is the headline news throughout the day in Taiwan.

Linky to another source, 4 hours ago: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/762088/...n-taiwan-quake

Transportation-wise, if you plan to take Taiwan High Speed Rail during this Lunar New Year, currently the services south of Taichung are partially suspended due to the impact. Taiwan High Speed Rail will announce at 21:00 tonight when & how it will resume its services after more thorough inspection of the damage. Since today is the beginning of the Lunar Chinese New Year holidays in Taiwan (Feb 6 thru Feb 14), more traffic nightmare is fully expected. If you are tourists, I would strongly recommend you to NOT take Taiwan High Speed Rail to save you the headache.

I'll see if I can post more updates later tonight.

Reporting from Tainan. It was a strong shaker, for sure. Certainly got our attention at 4AM. We're on the top floor of an 11F building, so we were given a nice ride.

But just to keep things in perspective...

As usual, the media is portraying widespread devastation as they vie for your eyeballs. But the reality is that the significant damage is limited to just a small handful of buildings with sub-par construction. The 17-story building that collapsed (and is the star of most news reports), had been officially listed as a "dangerous building" after the 921 earthquake in 1999. Yet the government did nothing about it other than telling people--you might not want to live here.

There is one other large building I've seen on the news that is leaning, but not collapsed. And I've heard reports of a handful of cracked walls, broken water/gas pipes, and shattered windows. But that's about the extent of it. Damage is very localized, not widespread. Driving around town today, everything looks normal.

So, while I don't wish to minimize the tragic losses suffered by the families who live in the damaged building, please don't get the wrong idea that there is widespread damage in Tainan. There isn't.

Okay, perhaps I need to walk back some of my earlier comments. While we appear to been fortunate to escape any major damage at our building, I'm starting to see some photos from FB friends who were not so lucky.

While there doesn't appear to be widespread damage around the city from the outside, there's a lot more internal damage than I first realized. One friend posted picks of support pylons in his underground parking garage where much of the concrete has shattered away, and there's just twisted rebar holding up the building. Scary stuff.

I came to FT looking for you when I saw Tainan as the location. Am glad to see you seem to be OK. I'm from Southern California so I grew up with earthquakes, but the most memorable one in recent years was here in the DC area. Best wishes to you and yours, Skyman65.

Thanks for your thoughts and concern.

I also lived in SoCal for about ten years. Today's quake felt a bit like the Northridge quake in '94 (which I experienced from Fontana, and which also occured at about 4am).

Skyman65, came onto ft to check on you too. Glad that you're ok. Thanks for the updates. Fortunately the damage is localised. Reports on the bbc website isn't that detailed and showed horrifying pictures.

Thanks.

As more info comes out, it looks like it was a bit worse than I first thought, but not nearly as bad as the story the media is selling.

Just got off phone with some local family and friends. Taipei and Taichung no impact. In fact, no shocks even felt in Taipei city.

"Appears" major damage isolated to Tainan city and one specific city block and apartment building. That building had 250+ registered residents accounted for, but guests and visitors count still unknown.

Skyman, glad to hear you are OK. And my thoughts goes to those affected.

A close friend and her husband and two kids just arrived in KaoHsiung from SFO on Feb 6 for the Chinese New Year, so when I found out about the quake first thing I did was try to contact them. Thankfully, everyone is OK. They said it was really scary as they were on 8th floor and nowhere to go but to ride it out. Cracks were everywhere on the wall in the apartment.

I am just glad they were all fine. This is the 2nd big quake they experienced in a short two years. We were all in Napa 1 year and half ago when the big Napa earthquake happened, my hotel room was shattered. They were actually in the epic center American Caynon that time, also with the kids! I sure hope they have better luck in the future now that they have survived two major disaster!

If there's a country used to earthquakes I'd guess it is Taiwan. Even though that building collapsed they've still managed to get many people out alive.

Last time I was in Taiwan I spent a couple of days in Tainan and really enjoyed it. Hopefully they'll be able to get back on their feet soon.

Also visited the 921 earthquake museum which was fascinating. They left the school in its collapsed state and even have an earthquake simulator inside the museum so you can feel what the quake felt like. And there are other buildings in the area that were not removed, one is a pretty famous temple. I can't recall its name but shot a lot photos.

The most significant damage and loss of life is limited to the one 17-story building that fell over.

Estimates are that there were over 300 souls in the building at the time of the quake. Latest info is that 18 are confirmed dead. But over 100 are still missing. So...the death toll is likely to climb significantly.

There was another bank building that slumped over (didn't fall completely), but no one was inside at 4am.

There were also a handful of private homes that suffered significant damage, but no serious casualties.

Latest update: 34 confirmed dead. 69 hospitalized. 119 still missing. Link (Chinese)

A primary water main serving much of the city ran under the toppled building, and it was damaged. Water service to our district has been out since the quake, and the city just announced that they don't expect to have it repaired until 2/14. They cannot get to the damaged pipe while rescue efforts are still ongoing.

Our building has rooftop and underground reserve water tanks which are expected to last 2-3 days. So we still have water presently, but will likely run out in the next day or two. My in-laws live in a different district, and their service was restored today. So we may be going over there to shower for the rest of the week. :(