TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — More than 1,000 people are taking part in earthquake-response drills that began in Taitung County Wednesday (Sept. 16), bringing international rescue teams together with military and civilian responders.
Taitung is coordinating the nationwide exercise through Friday, with operations spread across urban, coastal, and offshore locations. Organizers built the drills around an imagined magnitude 7.3 earthquake originating in the Hualien-Taitung Longitudinal Valley fault system, per CNA.
Plans include helicopter medical evacuations offshore, rescues from vehicles in water and ravines, and collapsed-building searches. Green Island’s activities include tsunami evacuation and mass-casualty care, while other exercises cover emergency shelters and island resupply.
Backup communications will be tested during a mobile-network slowdown in Jinfeng Township from 2:30–3:30 p.m. Thursday, per a Taitung County Government release. Connections may briefly become unstable before normal service resumes.
Residents were asked to observe access restrictions and avoid spreading false reports while military trucks, emergency vehicles, and helicopters move around the county. Messages about simulated disasters will be marked as drills, as was Wednesday’s 8 a.m. phone alert.
People will be asked to practice drop, cover, and hold on when a nationwide earthquake alert sounds Monday at 9:21 a.m., per UDN. Television stations will broadcast disaster information from 10:59–11:01 a.m., following a 9:30 a.m. tsunami alert test.
