TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A series of earthquakes struck Chiayi on Sunday (Oct. 27), registering magnitudes between 3.1 and 4.9.
According to CWA data, four earthquakes occurred on Sunday in Zhongpu Township. The first struck at 2:19 p.m. with a 4.8 magnitude and a 5.6 km focal depth, followed by two more quakes at 2:21 and 2:27 p.m. and a fourth quake measuring 4.9 magnitude at 2:56 p.m.
At 2:57 p.m., the CWA issued a warning for southern Taiwan using the nation's Public Warning System, urging people to be aware of the possibility of further aftershocks. Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation also temporarily suspended service on north and southbound trains between Taichung and Zuoying stations and told travelers to expect delays, reported CNA.
The region saw aftershocks occurring between 3 and 4 p.m. all with magnitudes between 3.1 and 3.8.
The afternoon quakes were preceded in the same area by a much smaller foreshock at 1:58 a.m., with a 3.1 magnitude. Sunday’s quakes occurred roughly 20 kilometers east and southeast of Chiayi County Hall.
The average focal depth of the earthquakes in Chiayi was close to 6 km, with the 4.9 magnitude quake being the shallowest at only 5 km.
Taiwan uses an intensity scale of 1 to 7, which gauges the degree to which a quake is felt at a specific location. The highest intensity felt for Sunday’s quakes was four in Chiayi County, with intensity levels of 3 and 2 in Tainan and Yunlin.
In recent decades, the majority of earthquakes that strike Taiwan occur on the eastern side of the Central Mountain Range, along the Hualien coast or Yilan. However, the Meishan fault line which runs underneath Chiayi, was the location of a massive 7.1 magnitude earthquake that occurred in 1906. More recently, in 2017, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in the area due to a similar thrust movement along the fault line, per LTN.
Earlier this year, ten days after the deadly 7.2 magnitude quake that struck Hualien on April 3, Chiayi experienced a series of eight small quakes over several hours on April 13.
