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One person has been killed in Taiwan after the island’s strongest earthquake in almost 25 years, damaging buildings, halting rail traffic and forcing the evacuation of semiconductor manufacturing plants.
The quake — which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, according to Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency, and 7.4 according to the US Geological Survey — struck at 7.58am on Wednesday off the east coast, 25km south-east of Hualien, a city of about 100,000 people.
Taiwan’s National Fire Administration said one person had died and 56 others had been injured. At least two buildings in Hualien were severely damaged and people were trapped in one of them, according to witnesses.
Train services were suspended, and New Taipei, the municipality surrounding the capital, halted school and work for the day.
Taiwan is one of the world’s most important centres of semiconductor production. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, evacuated personnel from some of its plants.
“TSMC’s safety systems are operating normally,” the company said in a statement. “We are currently confirming the details of the impact.”
The company also said it had suspended work at construction sites for the day pending further inspections.
A tsunami warning issued for Japan’s southern island prefecture of Okinawa was later lifted.
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