Hualien residents rattled by earthquake alarms

HUALIEN (TVBS News) — A series of earthquakes have rattled Taiwan from Monday (April 22) evening to Tuesday morning, with Hualien experiencing significant shaking. Local residents reported that the continuous earthquake alarms kept them awake throughout the night.

A Hualien online user shared on a Facebook group that she received more than a dozen earthquake alerts on her phone from 5 p.m. Monday to 5 a.m. Tuesday. She exclaimed, "It has been shaking for 12 hours. The sleepless people of Hualien are on the verge of collapse!"

After her post was made public, many Hualien residents expressed their distress in the comments section. "It has been shaking all night until dawn, and our phones have been ringing non-stop," one wrote. Another said, "Hualien has been shaking all night, I couldn't sleep." A third commented, "This thing is now more useful than an alarm clock."

According to the Central Weather Administration (CWA), Hualien County experienced continuous earthquakes from last night to this morning. The largest, with a magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter scale, occurred at 2:32 a.m. Tuesday. The earthquake had a depth of 5.5 kilometers, with the maximum intensity in Hualien County rated as a weak 5.