Houston Community News >> Two Quakes Rattle Taiwan
9/6/2007 TAIPEI (Reuters) - Two
strong earthquakes rattled Taiwan's capital and the north of the island on
Friday, disrupting communications though no casualties or serious damage were
reported.
Last December, a series of earthquakes off Taiwan
damaged eight undersea cables, knocking millions of Internet users offline and
disrupting banking services from Seoul to Sydney.
The U.S. Geological Survey measured the magnitude of the first quake at 6.5 at
01:51 a.m. local time (11:51 a.m. EDT). Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said the
second tremor followed four minutes later with a magnitude of 5.7.
The Central Weather Bureau said the epicenter of the first quake was 76 km (47
miles) southeast of the island and 27 km deep, and the second one about 10 km
farther away. It measured the first quake at magnitude 6.6 and the second at
5.7.
Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's top telecommunications carrier, said an undersea
cable to Japan was damaged and was under repair.
"All communications are more or less back to normal," a Chunghwa spokeswoman
said.
Taiwan's disaster center said they had no reports of casualties.
Earthquakes are common in Taiwan but do not
often cause serious damage. The worst in recent years was in 1999, when at least
2,000 people died in a quake measuring 7.6 in central
Taiwan.