On the night of the 27th, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off the east coast of Taiwan, and as of the 28th, no major damage had been reported.
According to local media including Central News Agency that day, tremors from the strong quake were felt across Taiwan the previous day, but no major damage, including casualties, had yet been confirmed.
However, in Yilan County, which is close to the epicenter, various damages followed, including a substation trip that caused a 10-minute outage for 3,465 households. At Terminal 2 of Taoyuan International Airport, ceiling structures broke and fell.
TSMC, the world's largest foundry (contract semiconductor manufacturing) company, said that immediately after the quake, its plant in Hsinchu Science Park in northwestern Taiwan reached the evacuation threshold, and it evacuated employees under emergency response procedures.
TSMC said, "The work safety systems in each plant area are operating normally," and did not mention whether there was any damage such as production disruptions. In addition, semiconductor companies including UMC, VIS, Macronix, and Winbond began equipment inspections.
The quake occurred at about 11:05 p.m. on the 27th at a depth of 73 km off the east coast of Yilan County. The epicenter was 32.3 km east of Yilan County, and the focal depth was 72.8 km. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) measured the magnitude at 6.6.
Taiwan sits at the junction of two tectonic plates and experiences frequent earthquakes. In Apr. last year, a magnitude 7.2 quake struck Hualien County in the east, killing at least 17 people, and on the 24th, a magnitude 6.1 quake also occurred in Taitung County in the southeast.