Cablegate: Taiwan Hit by 3 Offshore Earthquakes No Amcits

VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHIN #4192 3610826
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 270826Z DEC 06
FM AIT TAIPEI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3547
INFO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 6129
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 8322
RUEHML/AMEMBASSY MANILA 9874
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 8350
RUEHGP/AMEMBASSY SINGAPORE 6724
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 7359
RUEHC/DEPT OF INTERIOR WASHDC

UNCLAS AIT TAIPEI 004192

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DOI PASS USGS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: CASC TSPL SENV ECON TPHY TW
SUBJECT: TAIWAN HIT BY 3 OFFSHORE EARTHQUAKES NO AMCITS
HURT

1. On December 26 at 8:26 pm a strong earthquake registering
6.7 on the Richter scale struck southern Taiwan. The quake,
with an epicenter 21.8 km southwest of Hengchun was felt as a
Richter 4 quake in the city of Kaohsiung, and a Richter 2
quake in Taipei. A second tremor, magnitude 6.4, with an
epicenter 27.9 km southeast of Kaohsiung, struck at 8:34 pm.
The two tremors collapsed at least three buildings, trapped 8
people under rubble and caused two casualties and 38 wounded.
The earthquake also knocked out cell and land line phone
communication in Kaohsiung until after 2310 hours.

2. After phone lines were restored AIT/K was able to contact
its wardens in Pingtung county, all of whom reported no Amcit
casualties among the registered 4,000 Amcits in southern
Taiwan. AIT/K also contacted the Foreign Affairs Police in
Pingtung county who reported that none of the over 490
resident Amcits was injured. AIT has received very few calls
from relatives of the Amcits. The tremors caused power
outages to 4,000 households and the no. 2 reactor at Maanshan
nuclear power plant was briefly shut down. Power was
restored to half of the households later in the evening. The
latest tremor, a magnitude 5.9 quake happened on Dec. 27 at
10:30 am with an epicenter 40.25 km west of Hengchun, also in
southern Taiwan. While damage from the quakes was limited to
a few collapsed buildings, the quakes served to alert the
authorities to focus on southern Taiwan as an earthquake
prone zone and to plan emergency measures accordingly.
Seismologists attribute the quakes to movement of the
continental plates in the Manila Trench.

WANG

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