If you’ve seen the videos and aftermath pictures of this event, you’ll know that it’s a no BS situation. The island is very resilient but this is still a very disruptive event.
With so much cycling equipment coming out of Taiwan, be aware that there will be global issues with supply, again.
I was in the computer chip industry 25 years ago when they had the last one and they bounced back pretty fast, but there were a lot of things that didn’t come back to “normal” for well over a year.
Touched base with my friends and colleagues and all seem to be well…a number were caught in traffic in their way to work.
Was on a conference call with our management team and they were going through the aftershocks the whole call…
Scary stuff…hoping the damage is minimal. Taichung is not too far from the epicenter and that is the manufacturing hub of the island. We’ll see how factories are impacted. Honestly, it is an amazing testament to their building codes that the damage was as relatively minimal as it was.
I’ve been there when smaller quakes have hit (but strong enough to set off the alert system on our phones) and it is disconcerting, to say the least. A 7.2 must have been scary.
This is crazy Reddit - Dive into anything
I imagine the chip manufacturing can take up to a certain size quake till they can’t. The machines need to incredibly isolated from any vibration imaginable. At some point, the foundation or the ground will change pitch or crack.
As for the rest of things, this type of disruption may open the window for other “external threats” to seize a moment as some infrastructure is disabled and equipment needs to relevelled / oriented.
On that note…
Sounds like there will be no issues related to the bike industry…
The epic center of the earthquake is on the East coast of Taiwan, where there is limited population and industry and a mountain range blocking the semisic wave from reaching the population and industrial centers on the West. The last two earthquakes in 2022, magnitude 6.9 and 6.7, on the same coast didn’t register a blimp, so why should this be different?!
Seismic waves travel through mountains. The perceived strength does dissipate with distance from the epicenter, if that’s what you mean.
No, the medium also matters. “Seismic attenuation is an intrinsic property of rocks causing dissipation of energy as seismic waves propagate through the subsurface”, see https://wiki.seg.org/wiki/Seismic_attenuation.
So to clarify you are saying seismic waves don’t travel through mountains?
Because that is absolutely not true.
Don’t want to get into a science argument here but your link supports my previous reply.
Now where did I say that? Are you just reading what you want to see? Please.
Earthquakes usually happen well below the surface, some estimates on this one:
I’m not sure why mountains were brought up. It’s more complex and interesting.
My apologies if I misread that.
Mountains were mentioned because the ground component makes a big difference in ground movement. Just as depth makes a difference. Being from SF I would rather be on solid rock than sandy landfill.
Look at all the earthquake experts we have here.
The closest population and industrial center is 58+ miles away and separated by a mountain range. The population of Hualien County is 318,736 (Mar 2023, ranked 20 out of 22 counties) out of a total population of 23,943,634 (Apr 2024) on the island. Cement mining is the major industry, accounting for nearly 29% of Taiwan’s annual cement production, according to Wikipedia (growing up, it was just known for the indigenous population and celebrated for their strong stance against the whitewashing of japanese colonial history even during Chiang’s white terror).
The disruption to the global supply chain is next to zero. The greens dragging their feet with the recovery, 100%.
Interesting article about how the 101 building is constructed to withstand earthquakes…I’ve been up there and watched the counterweight moving. Definitely a weird experience!!
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/04/style/taipei-101-earthquake-design-intl-hnk/index.html
I’ve got 38th floor stories back when I worked at 101 California in San Francisco’s financial district! A physicist at work got a ladder and hung a plumb bob from 12’ ceilings. I still have dreams where the building is bouncing down the street, like a James Rizzi painting.
New Jersey entered the chat…
Just felt that in western MA! 
4.8 on the east coast is no joke
