TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A magnitude 4.7 earthquake was recorded in Taiwan’s Pingtung County on Sunday morning in what seismologists called an unusual location.
The earthquake, which occurred at 11:12 a.m. at a depth of 23.3 kilometers, was felt at intensity 3 in Pingtung and at levels 1 and 2 across the rest of southern Taiwan, according to the CWA. While not exceptionally powerful, seismologists said the quake occurred in a region that has seen little seismic activity over the past 30 years, reported UDN.
Chen Da-yi (陳達毅), the section chief of the CWA Earthquake Monitoring Center, said the quake occurred in a seismological “blank area.” He cautioned that aftershocks of magnitude 4 to 4.5 are likely over the next three to five days.
The release of energy was caused by the Eurasian Plate subducting beneath the Philippine Sea Plate along Taiwan’s Chaozhou fault zone. Over the past few decades, to the north and south of Sunday’s quake, there have been 17 instances of small quakes along the fault zone, all between magnitude 4 and 5.
However, Chen said records from the past 30 years show no quakes above magnitude 4 in this part of Pingtung County, per UDN.
Shortly after Sunday’s quake in Pingtung, another quake occurred about 100 km to the north in Chiayi County, which has experienced an uptick in quakes over the past two years. Both quakes occurred along the west side of the Central Mountain Range, but the Chiayi quake was shallower, at a depth of 8.2 kilometers.
In recent decades, the vast majority of quakes affecting Taiwan have occurred along the island’s east coast, especially near Yilan and Hualien. Earthquakes on the west side of the Central Mountain Range are less common, but still occur with some regularity.
