The '2006 Hengchun earthquake' occurred on
December 26 2006 at 12:25
UTC (20:25
local time), with an
epicenter off the southwest coast of
Taiwan, approximately 22.8 km west southwest of
Hengchun,
Pingtung County,
Taiwan, with an exact
hypocenter 21.9 km deep in the
Luzon Strait (), which connects the
South China Sea with the
Philippine Sea.
There are conflicting reports of the magnitude of the quake, with the
Taiwan's
Central Weather Bureau marking it at 6.7
ML [1], the
United States Geological Survey estimating it at 7.1
Mw [2], the
Hong Kong Observatory [3] , and the
Japan Meteorological Agency [4] put the magnitude at 7.2
Mw.
Taiwan's
Central News Agency is reporting that it is the strongest
earthquake to hit Hengchun in one hundred years.
[5] The
earthquake not only caused casualties and building damages, but also damaged several
undersea cables, disrupting telecommunication services in various parts of
Asia. Coincidentally, the earthquake occurred on the second anniversary of the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that devastated the coastal communities across
Southeast and
South Asia and 3rd anniversary of the 2003 earthquake that devastated the southern Iranian city of Bam.
Damage
Taiwan
News agencies aired reports in southern
Taiwan of collapsed houses, building fires, hotel guests being trapped in elevators, and telephone outages due to severed lines. Two people were reported killed and 42 injured. The
earthquake was felt all over
Taiwan, including the
capital city of
Taipei, which is 450 km north of
Hengchun.
[6] [7]
Power was knocked out to a reported 3,000 homes, but service was restored within a few hours. As of the following morning, cleanup was already underway.
[8]
Fifteen historical buildings, including a Grade 2 historical site, have been damaged in the historic center of
Hengchun.
[9]
The Nuclear Power Plant 3 of
Taiwan Power Company nearby was affected by the
earthquake. Because of the vigorous vibration, the alarm at
Reactor #2 was activated, forcing the operators to carry out
SCRAM immediately. However,
Reactor #1 was not affected and remained operational. After the emergency shutdown of
Reactor #2, engineers checked the facilities at the plant and no problems had been found.
[10]
Hong Kong and Macau
Residents in different
districts of
Hong Kong felt the
earthquake. Fearing the collapse of their buildings, people in
Sham Shui Po,
Wong Tai Sin and
Yuen Long ran down to the streets.
[11] The
Hong Kong Observatory estimated the tremor as
Modified Mercalli intensity scale of III to IV.
[12] In
Macau, residents called the observatory to ask whether
earthquake occurred in their city.
China
There were no reports of major damage in
China although the quake could be felt there. In
Xiamen,
Fujian, people evacuated from their home and office to open spaces.
[13] The earthquake could also be felt in various cities in
Guangdong province and
Fujian province (e.g.
Guangzhou,
Shenzhen,
Shantou and
Fuzhou.)
[14]
Aftershocks
Aftershocks greater than 5 Richter magnitude scale (or more correctly local magnitude M
L scale) are listed in the table below:
! #
! Time
! Location
! Magnitude
! Depth
|-----
| 1
|
December 26,
2006 20:34
UTC+8
| 22.5°N, 120.51°E, 11.6 km northwest of
Fangliao
| 6.4
ML
| 21.3 km
[15]
|-
| 2
|
December 26,
2006 20:40
UTC+8
| 21.94°N, 120.4E, 35.4 km west of
Hengchun
| 5.2
ML
| 25.0 km
[16]
|-----
| 3
|
December 26,
2006 22:53
UTC+8
| 21.86°N, 120.39°E, 39.8 km southwest of
Hengchun
| 5.2
ML
| 25.0 km
[17]
|-
| 4
|
December 26,
2006 23:41
UTC+8
| 22.09°N, 120.22°E, 31.6 km southwest of Little Liuchiu Island
| 5.5
ML
| 23.0 km
[18]
|-----
| 5
|
December 27 2006 01:35
UTC+8
| 21.78°N, 120.31°E, 50.4 km southwest of
Hengchun
| 5.8
ML
| 32.6 km
[19]
|-
| 6
|
December 27,
2006 10:30
UTC+8
| 22.03°N, 120.33°E, 35.1 km south of Little Liuchiu Island
| 5.9
ML
| 28.0 km
[20]
|-----
| 7
|
December 28 2006 17:38
UTC+8
| 21.96°N, 120.56°E, 54.5 km southwest of
Hengchun
| 5.3
ML
| 54.5 km
[21]
|}
In addition, three others were reported that were of at least 4.7 intensity according to the
Taiwan's
Central Weather Bureau [22].
Tsunami warning
Taiwan
This earthquake marked the first time
Taiwan detected a
tsunami. Fortunately, the change in
water level was only 25 cm, causing no damage.
[23]
Warning from agencies in other areas
Early reports issued by the
Japan Meteorological Agency indicated that the
earthquake triggered a 1 meter
tsunami, which was detected heading for the east coast of the
Philippines, with
Basco in its likely path.
[24] The
Hong Kong Observatory also issued tsunami information bulletin
[25], while indicating Hong Kong would likely be unaffected.
Disruption in communications
The
earthquake catastrophically disrupted
Internet services in
Asia, affecting many Asian countries. Financial transactions, particularly in the
foreign exchange market were seriously affected too.
[26] [27] The aforementioned disruption was caused by damage to several
submarine communications cables.
[28]
China Telecom reported that several international submarine communications cables had been broken
[29] [30], including:
★
CUCN and
SMW3, which was damaged at
December 26 2006 20:25
UTC+8 approximately 9.7 km away from landing point in Fangshan,
Pingtung County,
Taiwan;
★
APCN 2 S3, which was damaged at
December 27 2006 02:00
UTC+8 approximately 2100 km away from landing point in
Chongming,
Shanghai,
China;
★
APCN 2 S7, which was damaged at
December 27 2006 00:06
UTC+8 approximately 904 km away from landing point in
Tanshui,
Taipei County,
Taiwan;
★
FLAG Europe Asia, the segment between
Hong Kong and
Shanghai was broken at
December 27 2006 04:56
UTC+8;
★
FLAG North Asia Loop, the segment between
Hong Kong and
Pusan was broken at
December 26 2006 20:43
UTC+8,
severely damaging the communications within the Asia-Pacific region and with the
United States and
Europe.
[31][32]
Taiwan
Chunghwa Telecom stated that an
undersea cable off the southern coast had been damaged
[33], interrupting communications (including
IDD, telephone services and
internet services) of
Taiwan with
China,
Hong Kong,
Malaysia,
Singapore,
Thailand, and the
United States. The international calling capacity was reduced to 40%.
[34]
China
IDD, telephone services and
internet services of
China with
North America was seriously affected by the
earthquake. However,
China Telecom announced on
December 31 that
IDD services had resumed to normal level.
Internet services had resumed to 70% of normal level. As the
undersea cables to
North America was seriously damaged by the
earthquake, the quality of
internet services depends on the progress of
repairing work.
[35]
Hong Kong
Starting from the dawn of
December 27, connection between foreign web sites/servers and
Hong Kong internet users kept failing.
Wikipedia, search engines, online messengers like
ICQ and
MSN Messenger, and portals like
Google,
Yahoo! and
MSN have been largely unavailable. Access to
Chinese Wikipedia was cut by the earthquake too, as the servers are located in
South Korea.
[36] Websites located in mainland China, such as xinhuanet.com, the website of
Xinhua News Agency, were also unaccessible.
On
December 29, the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA)
[1] of
Hong Kong Government announced that,
IDD and
roaming calls to
Taiwan have resumed to 50% of the normal level.
IDD and
roaming calls to other
Asian countries (e.g.
South Korea) are slower than normal condition. Calls from
Hong Kong to overseas using
calling cards have the same situation as the
IDD and
roaming calls.
[37]
However, calling from overseas to
Hong Kong using
calling cards is still facing serious congestion.
[38]
For
internet services, as of
December 29, connections to web sites in the
U.S.,
South Korea,
Japan and
Taiwan were still very slow. However, the situation was improving, sites which could not be accessed before (e.g.
Wikipedia,
Google,
YouTube) were available at extremely slow speed.
[39] Among the
internet service providers in
Hong Kong,
PCCW's
Netvigator was the slowest to resume enough bandwidth for their users.
[40] Therefore, as a temporary remedy, many
internet users in
Hong Kong used
proxy servers in
Australia,
Thailand,
Spain or even the
UAE and
Kuwait to access foreign websites.
As of
December 31, the situation of
internet connection had improved. Although sites that were previously unavailable became accessible, the connection speed was still slower than normal.
[41]
Philippines
The
earthquake has cut
PLDT's capacity and connectivity by as much as 40 percent
[42] The two largest Philippine mobile communications companies
Smart Communications and
Globe Telecom had also reported some international connectivity problems at that time. The rest (60%) of telephone and
Internet capacity was operational as carriers rerouted through other links to
North America, the
Middle East,
Hawaii,
Malaysia and
Singapore.
and other
outsourced business processes that have become a major industry in the
Philippines feared that the
cable damage might hamper their operations dramatically; only two centers were totally shut down due to the problems.
United States
In the United States, several networks and bloggers have experienced a noticeable reduction of the volume of
spam received after the earthquake. A blogger noted that "one large network in North America saw their mail from Korea drop by 90% and from China by 99%."
[43]
Other areas
Korea Telecom[44],
Malaysia's
Telekom Malaysia [45] and
Jaring [46], as well as the
Communications Authority of Thailand,
[CAT Telecom to invest in optical networks in the Indian Ocean, ''Thai News Agency'', 2006-12-30] Singapore's
StarHub and
SingTel [47] and
Brunei's Telbru have also reported disruption to most
Internet services. In
Singapore,
search engines and portals like
Google,
Yahoo!,
MSN and most websites have been virtually unreachable. In
Indonesia, Google is not accessible, but Yahoo! and
Wikipedia can still be used, tough the network connection speed is very slow.
Sri Lankan Internet services have likewise been affected. In
Malaysia, there were problems with popular
Internet services
[48] such as
Gmail and
Yahoo! News, however the situation is reported to be improving on
29 December.
Repairing work
Taiwan's
Chunghwa Telecom is currently in the midst of repairing works, five cable ships will be deployed. It is estimated that the repair work will take two to three weeks, depending on the condition of the
submarine cables.
[49] This is longer than the expected 5~7 days because of the severe damage of the
cables and bad weather there.
[50]
According to the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) of
Hong Kong Government, among the five cable ships deployed, two arrived at the scene. However, one of the two ships experienced a major fault on
December 30 afternoon and was under urgent repair in
Kaohsiung,
Taiwan. The repair for the ship was estimated to take about a week. Therefore the repair for the cables had to be postponed. It is estimated that the first part of the repair of one of the submarine cables would be completed around
16 January, 2007. For the other damaged cables, survey and assessment were being arranged and repair of most of the cables is expected to be completed progressively by the end of January 2007.
[51] [52]
IDD Services and disrupted
internet service in
Southeast Asia has been greatly restored pending the repairs and rerouted traffic.
[53]
Before the completion of the cable works, however, some countries have already have found alternative methods to restore the internet access. For example, by
3 January, 2007, Singapore's
SingTel has already fully restored the internet access provided by them.
[54] SingNet, SingTel's subsidiary, which does
ISP services, has recently released an announcement on its homepage, mentioning that "internet access to services such as gaming and video downloading may experience some delays".
[55] Whether or not this is related to the earthquake is unknown, albeit likely.
According to China Daily (16th January) the repairwork might be completed end of January, yet heavy winds in the Bashi Channel have stirred up 10-12 meter waves which makes it impossible to resume work.
[56]
See also
★
List of earthquakes
★
1999 Taiwanese 921 earthquake (Chi-Chi earthquake)
★
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
★
Submarine communications cable
References
1. Earthquake Report #95106, ''Central Weather Bureau'' of Taiwan, 2006-12-26
2. USGS Earthquake Hazards Program » Magnitude 7.1 - TAIWAN REGION, ''USGS'', 2006-12-26
3. List of locally felt earth tremors since 1979, ''Hong Kong Observatory''
4. 台湾付近震度分布図, ''Japan Meteorological Agency'', 2006-12-26
5. 2 KILLED IN STRONGEST EARTHQUAKE IN HENGCHUN IN 100 YEARS, ''Central News Agency'', Taiwan, 2006-12-27
6. 台灣接連規模6.7、6.4強震 高屏震度5級 全台強烈搖晃, ''ETtoday'', Taiwan, 2006-12-26
7. Clean up work begins after Taiwan quake, ''Associated Press'', 2006-12-27
8. Taiwan starts earthquake clean-up, ''CNN'', 2006-12-26
9. 恆春古城 城倒15座, ''UDN'', Taiwan, 2006-12-27
10. 台湾核电厂紧急停机, ''Phoenix Television'' website, 2006-12-27
11. 受台灣7.2級地震影響香港地震居民恐慌逃入警署, ''Apple Daily'', 2006-12-27 (in Chinese)
12. Press Release at 22:05HKT, December 26, 2006 by Hong Kong Observstory
13. 恆春地震廈門亦感震動, ''Ming Pao News'', 2006-12-26
14. 台湾南部海域地震福建、广东普遍有感, ''Xinhua News Agency'' website, 2006-12-26
15. Earthquake Report #95107, ''Central Weather Bureau'' of Taiwan, 2006-12-26
16. Earthquake Report #95108, ''Central Weather Bureau'' of Taiwan, 2006-12-26
17. Minor Earthquake Report, ''Central Weather Bureau'' of Taiwan, 2006-12-26
18. Earthquake Report #95109, ''Central Weather Bureau'' of Taiwan, 2006-12-26
19. Minor Earthquake Report, ''Central Weather Bureau'' of Taiwan, 2006-12-27
20. Earthquake Report #95110, ''Central Weather Bureau'' of Taiwan, 2006-12-27
21. Minor Earthquake Report, ''Central Weather Bureau'' of Taiwan, 2006-12-28
22. Recent Earthquake, ''Central Weather Bureau'' of Taiwan
23. 從恆春地震看國內建築防震問題, ''新浪新聞中心|中廣新聞網'', 2006-12-28
24. Taiwan starts earthquake clean-up, ''CNN'', December 26 2006
25. Tsunami Information and Warning, ''Hong Kong Observatory''
26. 網上銀行服務仍「斷纜」, ''Sing Tao Daily'', 2006-12-30
27. 韓股匯市受挫港交易無礙 星洲期貨受影響 「彭博」電訊一度中斷, ''Ming Pao'', 2006-12-28
28. Quakes disrupt Asia communications, ''CNN'', 2006-12-27
29. 地震損電纜影響通信上網, ''Ming Pao'', 2006-12-27
30. Submarine communications cable map of China
31. Asia communications hit by quake, ''BBC NEWS'', 2006-12-27
32. 地震損電纜影響通信上網, ''Ming Pao News'', 2006-12-27
33. 受台灣南部昨晚八點多發生的 6.5級強震影響，中華電信擁有之國際海纜招致重大破壞, ''Chunghwa Telecom'' press release, 2006-12-27
34. "Earthquake disrupts Internet access in Asia" Computerworld, 2006-12-27
35. 中電信國際話音專線業務全部恢復, Sing Tao Daily, 2006-12-31
36. 地震毀電纜影響國際通訊, ''Ming Pao News'' website, 2006-12-27
37. OFTA's Update on 29 December on the Restoration of External Telecommunications Services, ''the Office of the Telecommunications Authority'', Hong Kong SAR, 2006-12-29
38.
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