Pond's Asian Studies Blog: Chi Chi Earthquake, Taiwan, 1999

Introduction

Throughout the history of mankind, earthquake is proven as one of the major natural hazards that have brought down many of the world’s civilization. The Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Porcelain Pagoda of Nanjing, and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, all these architecturally marvelous places are some examples of how severe an earthquake could be. Earthquakes can tear a city of millions, kill countless amount of people, and cause billion dollars of damage.

San Francisco 1906

"1906 San Francisco."Library.Thinkquest.org. December 2nd, 2007

Earthquake

Earthquakes are caused by the movement of melting rock called mantle under the earth's surface called tectonic plates. The areas around the boundaries between plates are more likely to have earthquake. The center of the crashing or movement between plates are called the "epicenter". The epicenter seds out seismic waves through layers of rocks to the top surface of the plate where human's structures are built. The severity of an earthquake is measured by the Richter scale, which varies from 1 to 10, having 10 as the most severe.
[Waugh, David. The New Wider World. The United Kingdom: Nelson Thornes, 2003. ]

Earth's Tectonic plates

"Earth's Tectonic plates".Cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=3537&rendTypeId=4. December 2nd, 2007

What, Who, and When ?
Among one of the disastrous nature hazard ever occurred in the 20th century, The Chi Chi earthquake in Taiwan in 1999 is recognized as one of the most destructive earthquakes. The earthquake strucked on September 21st in ChiChi Township in the County of Nantou in central Taiwan. The damage caused by the earthquake is considered very severe. There were more than 2,400 deaths and people missing, about 11,400 severely injured, 44,000 structures destroyed, 40,000 structures severely damaged. The reason why this earthquake caused so much damage is that it occurred in the middle of the night, at 1.47am, while the people were not aware, and the epicenter is only about 100 km away from the capital city, Taipei. The severity was recorded at 7.0 Richter scale.

"Chi-Chi Earthquake". Wikipedia. December 2nd, 2007
"Chichi (Taiwan) Earthquake".http://www.rcep.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~sato/taiwan/. December 2nd, 2007

Damaged building

"Damaged provincial government building in ChunHsingHsinTsun ". http://www.rcep.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~sato/taiwan/twpics/tw/tw043.JPG. December 2nd, 2007

Damaged buildings in Fong Yen

"Earthquake in FongYen". http://www.rcep.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~sato/taiwan/twpics/tw/tw014.JPG . December 2nd, 2007

Why and How ?
According to the tectonic plates of Taiwan, Taiwan is located along the boundaries of the Eurasian plate and the Philippines plate. The Eurasian plate is a continental crust, while the Philippines plate is an oceanic crust. When both of them moved towards each other, it creates a destructive margin. Destructive margin occurs when an oceanic crust moves toward a continental crust and is forced downward, which can triggers severe earthquake or volcanic eruptions. The earthquake destroyed the whole town of ChiChi, and its aftershock severely damaged five surrounding towns. The map below shows where the aftershocks occured. The blue star is the location of the epicenter in the center of ChiChi.

"Chi-Chi (Taiwan) Earthquake". http://www.rcep.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~sato/taiwan/index.html. December 2nd, 2007

Map of the Aftershocks
[http://www.rcep.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~sato/taiwan/index.html]

Tectonic plate map of Taiwan
[http://www.rcep.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~sato/taiwan/images/twmap2.gif]

Effects on the Economy

Taiwan's central government has estimated the total financial and property loses from the earthquake at 10$-12 $ billion. The earthquake brought down Taiwan's gross domestic product (GDP) for 0.5%. The 3.4$ billion Taiwanese stock market plunged, but very soon recovered.

http://www.rms.com/Publications/Taiwan_Event.pdf

Government's Responses

Taiwan, as a MEDC, managed to handle the situation very well. Even though they were not able to find all the missing bodies, but electricity and water came back within hours. By the year 2000, 80,000 housing units were rebuilt and outlawed any construction on the hillsides and faults to prevent damage. The Taiwan government handed out the earthquake handbook to its people. A new earthquake resisting construction technique called the "Seismic Isolation System" is introduced to Taiwan.
http://www.rms.com/Publications/Taiwan_Event.pdf
http://www.takenaka.co.jp/takenaka_e/rodin_e/structure/structure.html