Taiwan Earthquake - The 9-21 Earthquake (September 21 1999) :: essays research papers

Taiwan Earthquake - The 9-21 Earthquake (September 21 1999) CNN: A special news report-This morning, there was an earthquake registering 7.6 on the Richter scale shaked Taiwan at 1:45am on September 21,1999. The epicenter is a mile under the ground in Nantou near Puli. There are many buildings crushed, and even a twelve floor-high rise building suddenly became a two floor- high rise building (the first to the sixth floors dipped into the underground, and the seventh to the twelfth floors went diagonally down and damaged the road.) As of press time the Disaster Management Center said 2,034 people were confirmed dead. Another 6,536 were injured and 2,308 were trapped, while 208 were still listed as missing. The number still increases, Taiwan has many earthquakes, and although most are centered under the sea and cause no damage. Some have brought disaster to the island, but this time is the biggest earthquake in Taiwanese history. Taiwanese call it the 9-21 earthquake because it happened on September 21 1999. I was at my work place, I had heard the news: there was a building crushed in Taipei because of a serious earthquake was registering 7.6 happened in Taiwan about an hour ago. I was so happy and careless because my entire family dose not live close to Taipei and I did not have any bad information about central Taiwan. During my lunch break, there was updating news from CNN station: the epicenter of this earthquake is in Nantou near Puli. My heart was stony and cold, after I knew the epicenter was in my grandmother’s hometown-Puli. Nantou County is approximately 200km south of Taipei, and it is the only place not around the ocean in Taiwan. There are only mountains around Nantou, and Puli is a small town in Nantou County. There are about two thousand people in Puli, and its wine, rice noodles, and beauty are the most famous things in Taiwan because Puli has very good and clean spring water, and the air quality is the top of the line- no pollution. Moreover Puli is a small town, and all the people in Puli are like a big family. People know everything in the town, and they knew me since I was born. It is a very different environment and experience in Puli than in America, and I love it very much. It was hard to believe that Mother Nature punished Puli and Taiwan so badly.