Earthquake measuring 7 hits Taiwan, no damages
Bangkok Post ^ | 10-16-05



Taipei (dpa) _ An earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale jolted northeast Taiwan on Saturday night, but there was no immediate report of damages or casualties.

The quake struck at 23:51 pm local time (1651 GMT), with its epicentre 185 kilometres east of Suao on the northeastern tip of Taiwan, 181 kilometres under the sea, the Seismological Observation Centre said. The centre initially reported the magnitude of the quake as 6.5 on the Richter scale, but later corrected it to 7.

Although classified as a major earthquake Saturday's tremor did not appear to have caused major damages, because the quake's centre was far away from Taiwan's coast and deep under the sea.

In 1999, an earthquake measuring 7.3 left 2,400 Taiwanese dead and 10,000 injured. The epicentre of that quake was 10 kilometres under Nantou, central Taiwan.

Taiwan sits on the circum-Pacific seismic belt, which also covers the Aleutian Islands, the Philippines, Indonesia and New Zealand. About 68 per cent of the world's earthquakes strike this area.

I don't believe theres no freaking damage from a 7 point earth quake???