FILE PHOTO : Overview of Taiwan country
(Reuters) – An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 shook Taiwan on Wednesday but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, the Central Weather Bureau said on its website..
The epicenter of the quake, which struck at 8:21 a.m. (8.21 p.m. ET), was in the east side of Hualien at a depth of 18 km (11 miles), the bureau said. Taiwan uses the Richter scale to measure earthquakes.
Earthquakes occur frequently in Taiwan, which lies on a seismically active stretch of the Pacific basin.
One of the island’s worst-recorded quakes occurred in September 1999. Measuring 7.6, it killed more than 2,400 people and destroyed or damaged 50,000 buildings.
(Reporting by Faith Hung; Editing by Paul Tait)