TAIPEI, March 4: A powerful quake jolted southern Taiwan on Thursday, causing panicked residents to flee shaking buildings, and triggering power blackouts and halting high-speed train services on the island.
At least eight people were injured but no major damage was reported from the 6.4-magnitude quake which the US Geological Survey said struck about 70 kilometres (about 40 miles) from the island´s second-largest city Kaohsiung.[break]
It was felt as far north as the capital Taipei, several hundred kilometres away.
The epicentre was in a sparsely inhabited mountainous area in Jiahsian township in Kaohsiung county, an area still recovering from a massive typhoon that triggered floods and mudslides in August, killing about 700 people.
"It felt like the buildings were going to collapse," said Chen Pei-chi, a teacher in Shiaolin Elementary School in a village close to the epicentre.
"I tried to get out, but my legs failed me because I was so frightened. Many children were screaming while they were running out of the classrooms."
Kaohsiung county chief Yang Chiu-hsing told SET TV that eight people were lightly injured, and three landslides were reported in the area.
It was the biggest earthquake to hit the Kaohsiung area in recent years, the weather bureau reported, and followed massive killer quakes in Chile on Saturday and Haiti in January.
The bureau said the initial quake was followed up by six aftershocks.
"The building was shaking violently and I was really scared. It felt just like a typhoon lashing out," said Chang Shu-yuan, a resident of Kaohsiung city, which has a population of about 1.5 million.
No tsunami warning was issued from the quake, which the USGS said struck at a depth of 35 kilometres (22 miles).
Local television showed footage of cracked walls and falling ceiling panels in Chiayi county, just north of Kaohsiung county.
Residents of Kaohsiung rushed out into the streets as buildings started shaking, and were reluctant to re-enter, according to local television.
Services on the Kaohsiung subway were halted, as were trains on the high-speed rail connecting the north and the south of the island, the companies said.
In the city of Nantou, also on the south of the island, water and power lines were cut, and a group of about 10 people were trapped in an elevator, the television said.
The defence ministry said it has dispatched at least 10 helicopters to survey quake-hit areas to assess the extent of the damages.
The quake also caused buildings to shake in Southern Taiwan Science Park, one of the nerve centres of the island´s high-tech export machine.
"Manufacturing at the companies in the park was interrupted as workers were evacuated to safety," said Wu Men-feng, spokesman of the park, which is about 70 kilometres (45 miles) from the epicentre.
Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.
In September 1999, a 7.6-magnitude quake killed around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island´s history.
Most modern buildings in Taiwan are built to withstand earthquakes, but the island´s sophisticated infrastructure is nevertheless vulnerable to the forces of nature.
An earthquake off Taiwan in December 2006 hit an undersea cable, causing days of disruption to Internet and telephone connections in large parts of East Asia.
In August last year, Typhoon Morakot dumped more than three metres (120 inches) of rain on the south of the island, triggering floods and mudslides which swamped houses and buildings, ripped up roads and smashed bridges.
Taiwan is still rebuilding and relocating villages devastated by the typhoon, the deadliest to hit the island in half a century.
Most of the roughly 700 people killed or still listed as missing in the typhoon were from Kaohsiung county.