1. Taiwan Earthquake, 9-21-99 - Vilasinee Kongsomboonvech Earthquake situated in an active seismological region on “ring of fire” North - Philippine plate subducting under Eurasian plate South - Eurasian plate subducting under Philippine plate Taiwan is a collision zone Plates move about 7cm/year = mts rise 5mm/yr

2. Geological Background - Taiwan More active seismically than most of California ~15,000 EQ occur/yr 51 faults score the island Island size 250m x 90m = 9% of California Taiwan’s population ~22,113,250 = 2/3 of California’s population

3. Chi-Chi “921” EQ 9/21/1999 1:47am 7.6 on the Richter scale Subduction zone EQ exposed on land “Unusual” because it was very shallow & usually occur out @ sea NO PRIOR WARNING! At least 2,297 killed - 8,700 injured -600,000 homeless

4. Chi-Chi “921” EQ Within 30m of focus of main shock, six smaller aftershocks occurred registering @ 6+ on Richter’s scale Total of 10,000 aftershocks More powerful than the EQ that occurred in Turkey a month earlier that killed 14,000 people No relationship - “bad coincidence”

5. Chi-Chi “921” EQ Most damage to rural areas Older units collapsed b/c not constructed to be EQ proof – some newer units collapsed due to corrupt use of $$$ For a demo of EQ resistant building construction vs. non- resistant see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/ 450000/images/_454259_eart hquake_300.gif http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/ 450000/images/_454259_eart hquake_300.gif

6. Images of “921”