A moderate earthquake shook southern Taiwan on Thursday, knocking out electric service to more than half a million customers and causing a fire in a textile factory, although injuries appeared to be limited, government agencies said.
The quake, with a magnitude of 6.4, struck at 8:18 a.m. in a mountainous region near the southern city of Kaohsiung, the Central Weather Bureau reported on its Web site. More than 120 aftershocks have since been recorded, the bureau said.Buildings in the capital, Taipei, also swayed for several minutes.The quake forced six high-speed trains linking Taipei to southern Taiwan to suspend operations and caused five fires, the officer said.
One fire, in a textile plant in southern Tainan County, was estimated to have caused more than $3 million in damage, the state-run Central News Agency said.
Earthquakes occur frequently in Taiwan, located on a seismically active stretch of the Pacific basin. In September 1999, a quake measuring 7.6 killed more than 2,400 people and destroyed or damaged 50,000 buildings. That quake caused the temporary closure of a number of manufacturing plants where computer chips and circuit boards are made.
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