Alan Chan, a 70-year-old retiree living in Taipei, about 120km north of Hualien, said he was lucky he did not suffer significant financial losses during the quake that caused serious damage in the area.
Some tiles in his bathroom fell off when tremors hit. His seventh-floor flat in a more than 20-year-old building in the Neihu district also developed several cracks, which he said he believed were caused by the initial tremors or subsequent major aftershocks.
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Taiwan’s 7.2 magnitude quake leaves 9 dead, more than 1,000 injured as rescue continues
One of the cracks nearly stretched from the ground to the ceiling of his 100-square-metre (1,000-square-foot) flat that he had bought more than 20 years ago.
Chan, an avid collector of model buses, said: “Almost all the plastic cases of my collections have cracked.”
He added that his cherished collection of dozens of model buses from Hong Kong fell to the ground and the hot porridge he was preparing for breakfast spilled out during the quake.
In Chan’s community, visible damage was observed, such as broken glass on balconies of residential buildings and fallen overhead power cables.
But their daily lives remained largely unaffected, with public transport operating normally, except for the disruption on the Circular line of the New Taipei Metro because a section of the rails was bent out of shape.
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Chan said he had postponed a driving tour he originally planned in two weeks due to a damaged highway connecting Hualien.
Cherry Leung, a tour guide with travel agency EGL, was accompanying 20 Hong Kong residents on a five-day trip to Taichung, Miaoli and Taipei that started on Sunday.
She expressed her gratitude that everyone was safe and their travel plans remained unaffected.
When the earthquake struck, Leung’s group was in a hotel in Taichung. No visible damage was observed in the vicinity. The group completed its itinerary in Taipei as scheduled and returned to Hong Kong on Thursday evening.
Leung said road conditions to Taoyuan International Airport were normal, with only minor congestion at certain points. A section of a highway was closed.
“We are lucky and it’s also unforgettable,” she said. “As Hongkongers, we rarely experience earthquakes and now we’ve encountered such a strong one. In Taichung, the magnitude was about 5. I am grateful that no one was injured.”
Airport operations remained normal but only a few flights to Japan experienced minor delays.
Leung also said that although they were in Taipei on Wednesday night, far from the epicentre, there were aftershocks.
“I felt a stronger one around 3am while in my hotel bed and it woke me up,” she added.
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Hong Kong’s Travel Industry Council said on Wednesday that about 30 tour groups comprising 900 people were in Taiwan at the time of the earthquake.
Only two or three groups were in the badly affected Yilan area. There were no reports of any groups in Hualien.
The council confirmed it had not received any requests for help, except for some inquiries from independent travellers.
The city’s Airport Authority said flight operations between Hong Kong and Taiwan and Japan remained normal as of 6pm.
