TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The magnitude 5.5 quake that rattled Chiayi on Tuesday (Sept. 5) is causing concern about whether a major earthquake is on the horizon.

Chiayi was hit by a magnitude 5.5 quake at 5:30 p.m., with a shallow focal depth of 8.5 km, following four shallow quakes in the region over the past two weeks.

While no casualties have been reported, the incident has raised the specter of the 1906 Meishan Earthquake, one of the deadliest seismic events in Taiwan. That earthquake in Chiayi County registered a magnitude of 7.1 at a focal depth of just 6 km, claiming more than 1,200 lives.

The Meishan Fault is a 16-km-long strike-slip fault, extending from Yunlin’s Gukeng Township to Chiayi’s Meishan Township, according to the Central Geological Survey.

Wu Chien-fu (吳健富), deputy director of the Central Weather Bureau’s Seismological Center, told CNA that the Sept. 5 quake was likely caused by interactions between the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. He downplayed the role of the Meishan fault as there is a distance between the location of the quake’s epicenter and the fault.

However, Wu cautioned that aftershocks of the scale of over magnitude 4 can be anticipated in the coming two weeks. Tremors of magnitude 4 or higher have been rare in the region for the past two decades and the Seismological Center urged calm as it is a welcomed development for energy in seismic waves to be steadily released, wrote UDN.

Visit the website of the Seismological Center for the archive of photos documenting the aftermath of the devastating Meishan Earthquake.

A magnitude 5.5 quake hit Chiayi on Tuesday (Sept. 5). (Central Weather Bureau images)