An earthquake struck in the ocean east of Taiwan at 1:36 a.m. Sunday morning. Yilan and Miaoli registered the highest readings on the island: a magnitude of 4. What was unusual this time was that some people were receiving more than 10 earthquake alerts, one after another, on their cell phones. The Central Weather Bureau says their earthquake detection system had trouble pinpointing and calculating the temblor because, at 112 kilometers undersea, it was faraway and deep. The CWB says it will correct the problem soon.
In the dead of night came unwelcome sounds of an earthquake alert. At 1:36 a.m. Sunday morning, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck in the ocean east of Taiwan. The strongest tremors on Taiwan proper were magnitude 4 in Yilan and Miaoli. But it was a short quake. What frightened people more were the successive earthquake alerts they received on their phones from the national emergency system.
The alerts came one after another. People received anywhere from seven to 14 alerts, depending on where they were.
Wu Chien-wen
Seismological Center, CWB
Every city and county received different magnitude readings and so the standards which called for alerts to be sent out were not the same. Also, the number of times they were issued were different as well.
The CWB says the faraway location of the epicenter also caused the system to be inaccurate.
Wu Chien-wen
Seismological Center, CWB
This earthquake was faraway in the ocean and very deep. Our system couldn''t pinpoint it accurately. So every time data came in, the system would make an update. The CWB is actively trying to correct this problem.
The CWB does not rule out the possibility of aftershocks in the next three days. It will also make needed tweaks to the system to avoid unnecessarily frightening the public when the next earthquake hits.
