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Lu Pei-ling, deputy director of the Taiwan Seismological Center, briefs the press about the Nantou quake, in Taipei, southeast China's Taiwan, June 2, 2013. (Xinhua/Wu Ching-teng)
TAIPEI -- One person died and 19 others were injured, including one critically, in an earthquake that shook Taiwan's Nantou County on Sunday afternoon, according to the island's disaster response authorities.
One person in Nantou is still missing, the authorities said.
The epicenter of the 6.7-magnitude earthquake was monitored at about 23.9 degrees north latitude and 120.9 degrees east longitude with a depth of 9 km, according to the mainland's China Earthquake Networks Center.
Taiwan's earthquake authorities measured it at 6.3.
A villager from neighboring Chiayi County died after being hit by falling rock.
As of 6:16 p.m., four smaller-scale aftershocks had been monitored in Nantou, the island's meteorological authorities said.
So far, there have been no reports of deaths or injuries among visitors from the mainland, said Man Hongwei, head of the Taipei office of the Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits.
Cable-car services in Nantou's Riyuetan (Sun Moon Lake) scenic spot have been halted. But high-speed trains in Taiwan have all restored operations and electricity has been resumed in affected areas, local authorities said.
A 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit Nantou on March 27 this year.
The recent two quakes correlate "a little bit" with a massive earthquake that shook the island nearly 14 years ago, said Lu Pei-ling, an official with the sub-center of Taiwan's earthquake forecasting center.
The 7.3-magnitude quake on Sept. 21, 1999 was the strongest to hit Taiwan in 100 years and left more than 2,000 people dead.
Lu said there is still a possibility that more quakes will occur in this area in the future. |
