
6.4 Earthquake hits Taiwan - singularity2001
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us1000chhc#executive
======
m104
If you find yourself looking for a quick way to gauge the impact to people and
property from an earthquake like this, I suggest you look for the USGS's PAGER
report:

[https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us1000chhc...](https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us1000chhc#pager)

They put this type of report together for each significant quake and it will
inform you very quickly about how concerned you should be. In this case, both
the Estimated Fatalities and Estimated Economic Losses are in the green bands,
so nearly everyone should be ok even if they feel a bit shaken (ahem).

~~~
superchink
Thank you. This is exactly what most people need, I feel. Much appreciated and
very useful.

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rangersanger
I was on a video chat with an engineer in Taichung when it happened. The
bicycle hanging from his ceiling was shaking pretty aggressively. He guessed
it was a 5 and was on the third floor of his 40 year old townhouse across the
island from the epicenter.

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vgf
I'm visiting Taipei at the moment. Received these alerts on the phone a few
minutes before the earthquake woke me up around midnight:

[https://i.imgur.com/v08yD9l.png](https://i.imgur.com/v08yD9l.png)

~~~
baybal2
I wonder why it is called a "presidential alert" while it has nothing to do
with one.

~~~
Someone1234
It is a US phone on a non-US network. The cell broadcast messages may have
been flagged the same as a "presidential alert" in the US but it would have a
different meaning locally (e.g. "government alert", "emergency alert"). I
believe the message type is just a "spare" numeric identifier that isn't
defined consistently between the US, Europe, and elsewhere.

~~~
dragonwriter
More specifically, as to the US category it got lumped in, Presidential alerts
are the highest priority in the Wireless Emergency Alert system, followed by
alerts for extreme then several imminent danger to life, followed by AMBER
Alerts.

So, its not surprising that a top-priority message would show as a
Presidential Alert in a US phone if the same basic technology and rough
semantics are used.

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imrehg
I have many friends living there, and loads of them say this was the
longest/strongest they remember feeling. Hope everyone is okay, the place is
set up to be resilient, but you never know until things happen....

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
_the place is set up to be resilient_

I wish that were more true. In 2016, 116 people died in a building that
collapsed in Tainan.

"Reuters witnesses at the scene of the collapse have seen large rectangular,
commercial cans of cooking-oil packed inside wall cavities exposed by the
damage, apparently having been used as building material.

Taiwan media has also reported the presence of polystyrene in supporting
beams, mixed in with concrete."[1]

\---

"The municipality has mobilized a team of engineers and architects to survey
the city and tag potentially dangerous buildings, marking at least 340
buildings at risk in the event of another earthquake.

Of these 340, only 319 have been completely surveyed, with 48 found to be
highly threatened buildings and 45 threatened buildings.

The Kaohsiung City Government also designated two engineers to determine its
threat level in the event of an earthquake, with only 14 at-risk buildings
reported.

All 14 have been surveyed, with two considered highly threatened and one
threatened in the event of an earthquake, the city government said." [2]

\---

It's very likely more people will die in future earthquakes due to cost-
cutting construction.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-quake-taiwan-
crime/taiwan...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-quake-taiwan-crime/taiwan-
developer-in-custody-after-deadly-quake-fells-building-idUSKCN0VI0DU)

[2]
[http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/02/14/2...](http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/02/14/2003639357)

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gtt
Is it going to affect hardware prices?

~~~
cjbprime
I think the Taiwanese companies we can think of (huge ODMs like Quanta and
Foxconn) do almost all of their manufacturing in China, not Taiwan.

Edit: oops, not Samsung of course.

~~~
Cyph0n
TSMC is based in Taiwan... If that's not 'huge', I'm not sure what is.

~~~
baybal2
TSMC did suffer complete loss of like 60% of production batches on few
occasions in the past and recovered after them just fine. And so did companies
in their supply chain. Actually, it is even more painful say for wafer
suppliers: a few seconds electricity loss at a silicon smelter or growth
vessel means 1 month revenue is lost.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jwebb/2016/02/29/the-
taiwanese-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jwebb/2016/02/29/the-taiwanese-
earthquake-that-nearly-cancelled-the-apple-iphone-7/)

------
mankash666
This is precisely where you should be sharing a news article versus merely
pointing to data. People want to know the impact it had, not just a
number/value.

Here's a reliable source: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
asia-42966916](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42966916)

~~~
haylem
I disagree. The OP pointed to the perfect source for his title, showing the
origin of the data.

The Richter scale measures and describes impacts, so you already know the
impact from the 6.4 rating itself.

For 6.0 to 6.9:

> Damage to a moderate number of well-built structures in populated areas.
> Earthquake-resistant structures survive with slight to moderate damage.
> Poorly designed structures receive moderate to severe damage. Felt in wider
> areas; up to hundreds of miles/kilometers from the epicenter. Strong to
> violent shaking in epicentral area.

Also, your link added very little info, and the only mention of the building
toppling (the infamous impacts) are in the title, with no reports, photos, or
witness accounts (as of yet).

I like that the OP didn't fall into voyeurism, that the title was enough to
inform me that a strong earthquake happened in Taiwan, and that the source was
enough to confirm it.

For the rest, I'll have the evening news, or BBC articles, but I don't think I
need them here on HN or that they were needed for this particular piece of
information, _at this point in time_.

~~~
roywiggins
pedantry: technically the USGS doesn't use the Richter scale anymore

Anyway: exactly how much damage an earthquake does varies wildly with exactly
where it hits and what sort of shaking it produces and what time of day it is
and the technical data doesn't always capture it perfectly. You can't know
whether buildings actually did collapse (and were there people inside? how
many?) without actual reporting.

~~~
mc32
Also geology is very important. Bedrock vs landfill will significantly affect
impact. Marina distract vs Laurel Heights.

~~~
roywiggins
The USGS data clearly tries to make intelligent guesses in that direction
(they try to guess at shaking, and local population, and local building
standards, etc to predict the damage) but imho what matters is what actually
happened rather than what the USGS computers think could have happened, and
reports of building collapses are probably more "real" than whatever the USGS
thinks is likely.

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elliotec
>>> The earthquake happened on the second anniversary of another 6.4 magnitude
one in 2016, which killed 116 people.

That's odd and interesting

~~~
pirocks
Odds of two people in a room having the same birthday?

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pirocks
Where the room is Taiwan, and the people in the room are the earthquakes in
Taiwan.

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eric_khun
Could an earthquake affect any space rocket launch? (like Space X Falcon one
coming in few minutes?)

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alainchabat
Will China send them help of any kind since they consider Taiwan a part of the
country?

~~~
HumanDrivenDev
[http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-
politics/article/213...](http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-
politics/article/2132463/taipei-rejects-beijings-offer-help-earthquake-rescue)

They offered, but it was refused.

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samat
Would it affect any hi tech production like hard drives or memory?

