A STRONG earthquake struck north-eastern Taiwan today, with residents reporting violent shaking in the capital Taipei but there is no immediate report of widespread damage.

Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said the quake is of magnitude 6.5 – the biggest on the island this year – but the United States Geological Survey gave a lower strength of 6.2.

It struck north-eastern Yilan county at 1.11pm (local time) at a depth of 67km.

An AFP reporter who lives in Yilan said the shaking seemed to last some 30 seconds.

“The walls of the house were shaking, both sideways and up and down, it felt quite strong.”

There was no damage in his neighbourhood.

The main quake was followed by a 5.4-magnitude aftershock and the MRT metro system shut down as a precaution for a little under an hour before service resumed.

Tom Parker, a British illustrator who lives in Taipei, said he was riding the subway when the quake hit.

“First time I had felt a quake on the MRT. Like a tame rollercoaster,” he tweeted, adding that he and other commuters were told to take shelter in the station for now.

Many others reported the tremor on social media.

“I was scared to death, I screamed in my room,” Yu Ting wrote on Facebook.

“This earthquake is really big; glass has shattered in my living room.”

Some grocery stores reported food and other goods were thrown from shelves by the shaking.

Authorities said they do not expect widespread damage as the quake is not a shallow one.

“The public do not have to be too worried,” said Seismological Centre director Chen Kuo-chang.

“The quake is deep and its intensity is not as big… it could have caused unpredictable damage if it were a shallow one.”

The Emergency Operations Centre reported one injury – a woman hit by falling rocks. Her friends were carrying her down a mountain in eastern Hualien county.

Taiwan is regularly hit by quakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.

Some earthquakes of this magnitude can prove deadly, although much depends on where the quake strikes and at what depth.

Hualien, a scenic tourist hotspot, was struck by a 6.4-magnitude quake in 2018 that killed 17 people and injured almost 300.

A 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999 killed about 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the island.

However, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake in Yilan last December had no major damage or injury reported. – AFP, October 24, 2021.