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One person has been killed in Taiwan after the island’s strongest earthquake in almost 25 years damaged buildings, halted rail traffic and forced the evacuation of semiconductor manufacturing plants.
The quake — which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, according to Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency, and 7.4 according to the US Geological Survey — struck at 7.58am on Wednesday off the east coast, 25km south-east of Hualien, a city of about 100,000 people.
Taiwan’s National Fire Agency said one person had died and 56 others were injured. In Hualien, one of two buildings that tilted due to the quake was fully evacuated without casualties. In another multistorey building, rescue workers were still confirming how many people remained trapped in apartments, the local government said.
New Taipei City, the municipality surrounding the capital, suspended school and work for the day.
Taiwan is one of the world’s most important centres of semiconductor production. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, evacuated personnel from some of its plants.
“TSMC’s safety systems are operating normally,” the company said in a statement. “We are currently confirming the details of the impact.”
The company added that it had suspended work at construction sites for the day pending further inspections.
Landslides on Taiwan’s mountainous Pacific coast cut off the only road connecting Hualien county, a mostly agricultural region home to some 330,000 people, with the north.
Many people started travelling there this week ahead of a long holiday weekend that starts on Thursday.
The quake temporarily knocked out power to more than 300,000 households, but supplies had been restored for more than two-thirds of affected homes by 11am, according to the state-owned Taiwan Power Company.
Formosa Petrochemical said it had suspended port operations at Mailiao, one of the world’s largest refineries.
A tsunami warning was issued for Japan’s southern island prefecture of Okinawa and later lifted.
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