TAIPEI: A magnitude-6.5 earthquake struck Taiwan yesterday morning as the island is still reeling from the impact of Typhoon Morakot last week.

No injuries or damage were immediately reported but the quake between Japan's southernmost islands and the coast of Taiwan briefly prompted a tsunami warning from the Japanese Meteorological Agency.

The epicenter was 187.7 kilometers east-southeast of Hualien, 11 kilometers below the Pacific Ocean floor, said the Central Weather Bureau's Seismology Center.

The temblor was felt around Taiwan. It registered an intensity of 4.0 in Orchid Island off Taitung county and an intensity of 3.0 in the eastern counties of Hualien and Yilan, as well as in the central counties of Taichung, Changhua, Nantou and Yunlin, seismologists said. Its intensity was measured at 2.0 in Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Penghu counties.

Though Kaohsiung county experienced only a magnitude-2 quake, local residents were on the alert, the memory of the devastating Typhoon Morakot fresh in their memory.

Shouting "earthquake", people rushed out to open space the minute they felt the tremor.

Hsinchu Science Park suffered no disruption despite the sensitive equipment it houses. The park administration said it received no reports of damages. Chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor and United Microelectronics Corporation both said their foundries were operating normally.

The quake was the strongest Taiwan has experienced this year.

A magnitude-6.3 quake centered off Hualien rocked Taiwan at 2:05 am July 14, the strongest temblor to strike the island in nearly two years. No major injuries or damage were reported.

Taiwan is located in a convergent zone between the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. Underground tectonic activity in this area is responsible for 16,000 to 18,000 detectable earthquakes in Taiwan every year. Two or three of these are of magnitude 6.0 or higher, according to the Seismology Center, while 30 or so measure up to 5.0 and 250 up to 4.0 on the Richter scale.

Yilan in the northeast and Hualien in the east are the most earthquake-prone counties in Taiwan.

Taiwan experienced its deadliest earthquake in five decades on September 21, 1999, when a magnitude-7.3 quake hit central Taiwan killing some 2,400 people and leaving more than 10,000 injured.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 08/18/2009 page2)