Buildings have collapsed in Taiwan after an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.5 struck on Wednesday morning, sparking a tsunami advisory in southern Japan.
Television footage showed collapsing buildings in the city of Hualien, on Taiwan’s eastern coast, with reports of people trapped inside.
Japanese media said the magnitude-7.5 quake could trigger waves as high as three meters in some areas of Okinawa prefecture, located roughly 1,000 miles south of Tokyo.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake had a magnitude of 7.4, with its epicenter 18km (11 miles) south of Taiwan’s Hualien city at a depth of 34.8km. Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency gave the magnitude as 7.2.
The Philippines’ seismology agency on Wednesday issued a tsunami warning for coastal areas fronting the Pacific Ocean, saying they were expected to experience “high tsunami waves”. People in the coastal areas in several provinces were advised to immediately evacuate to higher grounds or move further inland.
Announcers on Japan’s public broadcaster NHK urged people not to go near the coast and to evacuate to higher areas, while warnings in English and Japanese appeared on the screen.
NHK said an initial tsunami of 30cm had washed ashore on Yonaguni, a remote island just 110km from Taiwan, but warned that higher waves could follow.
A 7.6-magnitude jolt hit Taiwan in September 1999, killing around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.
It has only been four months since a magnitude-7.6 earthquake and tsunami killed 244 people and caused widespread damage on the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture on the Japan Sea coast.
Japan’s biggest earthquake on record was a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea jolt in March 2011 off Japan’s northeast coast, which triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 people dead or missing.
This is a breaking story and we will bring you more as it develops.
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