Taiwan hit by strongest earthquake in 25 years

The world’s largest producer of advanced chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, has evacuated some factory areas.

Train service was suspended across the island of 23 million people, as was subway service in Taipei. But things quickly returned to normal in the capital, with children going to school and the morning commute appearing to be normal.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about one-fifth of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

The country was rocked by its deadliest quake in eight years on New Year’s Day when a 7.6-magnitude quake struck in Ishikawa prefecture, on the western coast. More than 230 people died in the quake that left 44,000 homes fully or partially destroyed.

On March 11, 2011, the northeast coast was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the strongest quake in Japan on record, and a massive tsunami. 

Those events triggered a nuclear accident at the Fukushima plant, the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.