Location of Casualties and Damages
This preliminary report summarizes the initial observations of the advanced party of the Taiwan/US geotechnical reconnaissance team sponsored by the US National Science Foundation and various organizations from Taiwan. This report covers the initial reconnaissance efforts between September 29 and October 2, 1999. Ongoing work will lead to more comprehensive reports in the future. The members of the advanced party are:
Organization of Preliminary Reports
The preliminary reconnaissance report has been subdivided in smaller separate reports for an easier posting on the Internet. The reports cover the following subjects:
We would like to express all our thanks to our Taiwanese and American
colleagues who helped us in our reconnaissance effort and to express our
sincere sympathy to the victims of this natural disaster. We acknowledged
the financial support of the US National Science Foundation and of various
organizations from Taiwan. Some researchers were supported by the Pacific
Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER).
On September 21, 1999 at 1:47 AM (local time) a magnitude ML 7.3 earthquake struck the central part of Taiwan. This is the largest earthquake of the twentieth century in Taiwan. On October 3, 1999, the Central National Fire Administration (NFA) reported a death toll of 2246 and a total number of injured of 8735. NFA also reported that there were still 38 persons missing, 58 trapped under rubble, and 7 stranded in remote areas. On October 3, 1999, 4540 persons had been rescued. The total population of Taiwan is 22 million. The material damage is extensive: 9909 buildings collapsed, and 7575 were damaged. These numbers are likely to change with time. Revised estimates can be obtained from http://www.ncree.gov.tw.
The epicenter was located at 23.85N, 120.81E (CWB) at a depth of 6.99
km (CWB). The earthquake epicenter was located at Jiji along the thrust
fault called Tamoupu-Hsuangtung. The fault rupture mechanisms and strong
motion recordings can be obtained from the National Center for Research
in Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) of the National Taiwan University in
Taipei at http://www.ncree.gov.tw
Location of Casualties and Damages
Figures 1 and 2 display the distribution of casualties and damage per county and municipality, which is listed in Table 1 (NCREE). Casualties and damage are concentrated in the counties of Nantou, Taichung, Yunlin and Changhua.
Table 1. Distribution of casualties and damage in the 1999 Jiji,
Taiwan earthquake (NFA and NCREE, 1999).
Distribution of casualties per county after the 1999 Jiji, Taiwan
earthquake (data after NFA and NCRESS, 1999.
Distribution of collapsed buildings per county after the 1999 Jiji,
Taiwan earthquake (data after NFA and NCRESS, 1999).
As shown in Fig. 3, Taiwan is located at the intersection of the Eurasia plate and the Philippine Sea plate. The history of major earthquake since 1904 is summarized in Fig. 4. The 1999 Jiji, Taiwan earthquake is the largest earthquake in Taiwan this century. As shown in Fig. 5, Taiwan has a very dense array exceeding 600 strong motion instruments, which were triggered by the main event. The distribution of peak ground acceleration (PGA) is shown in Fig. 6.
General tectonic setting of Taiwan. Taiwan is located at the intersection
of the Eurasia and Philippine Sea plates (Central Geological Survey, Ministry
of Economics Affairs, ROC, 1997).
Major earthquakes in Taiwan during this century (after NCREE, 1999).
Location of strong motion stations in Taiwan (data from Central Weather
Bureau).
Distribution of maximum peak ground acceleration during the 1999
Jiji, Taiwan earthquake (data after NFA and NCRESS, 1999).
| Photos: | By the Authors |
| HTML page design: | Rodolfo B. Sancio, University of California, Berkeley |
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