That was quite the night yesterday.

Around 1:41am local time (UTC+8), there was a 6.6 earthquake north of Taitung, Taiwan, one of the small cities on the east coast.  Fortunately this is a sparsely populated area (barely 100,000 people).  This far other than collapse of a bridge under construction and a few minor injuries (e.g. an 88 year old man cut by glass), this has been remarkably uneventful.

What has people worried was the seventy two aftershocks within a 50 km radius over the next forty minutes, according to the Central Weather Bureau’s Seismology Centre.  This one kept going and going.  As of now, twenty-seven hours later, there have been 150 aftershocks around the island, a few dozen on the west side of the island near the inland city of Chiayi.  There is no risk of tsunami because the subduction zone is under the island, not offshore.

Normally I wouldn’t quote “Taiwan News” due to its low quality, but when feet on the ground are closest to the event…

Magnitude 6.6 earthquake strikes southeast Taiwan

Taiwan sees 150 aftershocks, another magnitude 6 possible

Giant boulder falls on southeast Taiwan highway after magnitude 6.6 earthquake

It’s like something out of Wile E. Coyote:

There are several collections of surveillance video already on youtube.  This was the best of the lot:

I doubt we can blame China for this one.