Asia-Pacific News
Earthquake measuring 5.7 jolts Taiwan
May 10, 2008, 20:20 GMT
Taipei - An earthquake measuring 5.7 on the scale jolted Taiwan early Sunday morning, but there was no report of damage or casualties.
The quake struck at 3:42 am (1942 GMT Saturday), with its epicentre 85.1 kilometres off Hualien on Taiwan's east coast, the Seismological Observation Centre said.
Taiwan sits on the circum-Pacific seismic belt, also known as the Pacific Ring of Fire. Nearly 90 per cent of the world's earthquakes and 80 per cent of its largest earthquakes occur along this belt.
About 200 quakes of a magnitude of 4 or more jolt Taiwan each year, with a dozen of them above magnitude 5. Most of these tremors occur off Taiwan's east coast, caused by the friction between the Philippine and Eurasian Plates.
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