html At 7:10 am on the 122nd, a magnitude 35.6 earthquake occurred in the eastern waters of Taiwan, and the whole of Taiwan felt. Taiwan Railway Administration was affected one after another, with a delay of about 21 minutes. Source: Taiwan's United Daily News data pictures. China News Service, February 22. According to Taiwan's "China Times Electronic News", a magnitude 5.6-magnitude earthquake occurred near Hualien this morning. Taiwan's meteorological department pointed out that Taiwan has about 20-25 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or above every year, but as of now, 15 of them have occurred in February, with abnormal energy released. It is estimated that there may be another magnitude 4 or above aftershocks of magnitude 4 or above in the next month.
At 7:10 am this morning, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake occurred at 69.6 kilometers south of the Hualien County Government, with an earthquake depth of 32.8 kilometers. The maximum earthquake was Taitung County Changbin magnitude 5, Hualien County magnitude 4, Changhua County Changhua City, Taichung City Dabai all had magnitude 3, Nantou City, Nantou City, Hsinchu County Zhudong magnitude 2, and Shuangbei area also had magnitude 1.
Chen Guochang, acting director of the Earthquake Measurement and Reporting Center of Taiwan Meteorological Department, said that this morning's Hualien earthquake was mainly caused by the Philippine Sea plate squeezing the Eurasian continental plate and forming a rupture zone on the extrusion surface. Last year, an earthquake of magnitude 5.7 occurred nearby. On February 19, 2005, the distance between today's earthquake was about 2 to 3 kilometers.
Chen Guochang pointed out that today's earthquake is different from the earthquake in Yilan's 2nd day before, and there will be more aftershocks. It should be "inseparable" to occur aftershocks of scale 4 in the next 2-4 weeks, but the earthquake sequence will not last too long like the strong earthquake in Hualien on February 6.
However, this year's earthquakes are indeed excessively frequent. Chen Guochang said that Taiwan has about 20-25 earthquakes above magnitude 5 each year, but as of today this year, there have been 15, of which 14 are concentrated after February 4, and the frequency of earthquakes is relatively high, "it's really not normal."
Chen Guochang evaluated that earthquakes were frequent at the beginning of this year, mainly because there were relatively few earthquakes from January to November last year and insufficient energy release. Starting from around December last year, some energy releases gradually occurred. From the perspective of energy release, earthquake activity this year may be more active.
