Taiwan spent years honing earthquake response skills
HUALIEN, Taiwan – When a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan’s scenic and largely rural east coast county of Hualien on Wednesday, local official Chang Tung-yao knew exactly what to do, having experienced a similar temblor six years before.
Within two hours of the quake, Chang said an emergency shelter was arranged at a nearby school where more than 130 residents ended up spending the night.
Since the 2018 earthquake of magnitude 6.4, in which seven people died, Chang said local authorities have strengthened coordination with government units and nongovernmental organizations for disaster response and relief.
This time, county officials and police along with other units who helped evacuate residents in affected areas of downtown Hualien city worked together to clear one of the damaged buildings before it could collapse in any aftershocks.
“Everyone is doing their job,” Chang said. “The county government and the local administrative office worked together to minimize the damage as much as possible.”
Taiwan is no stranger to earthquakes.
More than 100 people were killed in an earthquake in southern Taiwan in 2016, while a 7.3 magnitude quake killed more than 2,000 people in 1999.
That 1999 quake, commonly referred to as the “921 quake” as it hit Sept. 21, was a spur for the government to revise building codes and strengthen disaster management laws.
Sept. 21 is now a designated day for countrywide disaster drills and on this day mock alert messages for disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis are sent to people’s mobile phones, and schools around the island stage evacuation drills.
Yet Tai Yun-fa, a structural engineer who runs Taiwan’s Alfa Safe that develops quake-resistant building materials, said that while a tightening of building codes had helped better prepare the island for disaster, some developers were still cutting corners.
“The focus when it comes to development is still the lowest price, so in that case you can’t have the best quality.”
Taiwan has another compelling reason to ready its response – the potential for attack from China, which has been ramping up military and political pressure to try to force Taiwan’s democratically elected government to give in to Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
The earthquake alert system, with its piercing alarm sounding on mobile phones, is the same one the government would use to warn of an impending Chinese air raid.
Taiwan holds its Min’an civil defense drills annually, nominally to focus on natural disasters, though last year it also covered how to respond to the aftermath of a Chinese attack as part of those exercises.
Taiwanese cities and counties have rescuers on standby 24 hours a day, ready to respond almost at a moment’s notice to disasters.