Milne: Taiwan will not recover in time for Y2K

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Subject:Taiwan Will Not Recover In Time For Y2K
Date:1999/09/21
Author:Paul Milne <fedinfo@halifax.com>
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Tuesday, September 21, 1999 Published at 20:46 GMT 21:46 UK
 
 
World: Asia-Pacific
 
Quake survivors forced into open
 
Devastation in Fengyuan, central Taiwan.
 
Tens of thousands of people in Taiwan are spending the night camped in fields and parks after a powerful earthquake struck the island.
 
Many are too scared to return home fearing further aftershocks.
 
No city has escaped damage and more than 1,700 people have been killed.
 
Troops, helicopters and bulldozers are involved in the rescue work, but some people are digging through the night, using just their bare hands.
 
 
 
The BBC's Adam Brookes reports; "The earthquake tore at Taiwan's urban areas"
Anxious relatives have been keeping a vigil at collapsed buildings, praying for loved ones trapped under the rubble.
 
Emergency soup and rice kitchens have been set up by Buddhist groups while governments and international aid organisations have answered appeals for blankets, tents and food.
 
Casualty figures grow
 
 
 
Eyewitness David Bailey: "Rubble in the hallway"
The Taiwanese Ministry of the Interior said 1,712 were known to have been killed, at least 4,005 injured and almost 3,000 trapped in toppled buildings.
 
But the figures are likely to increase as more reports are collated.
 
Central Nantou and Taichung counties were worst affected. The town of Pu-li, nearest the epicentre in central Taiwan, reported 98% structural damage.
 
Click here to see a map of the affected area
 
Tremors were felt more than 500km (300 miles) away in Hong Kong and the south-eastern Chinese cities of Xiamen and Wenzhou.
 
China, which has an often tense relationship with Taiwain, has offered aid.
 
 
 
Struggling across the destruction
And the United Nations, which considers the island a province of China, has informed Beijing it will be sending a disaster assessment team to help with relief work.
 
The Philippines, Germany, Turkey, Switzerland, Britain, France, Spain, Israel, South Korea and Thailand had also offered to help, said Taiwan's foreign ministry.
 
Search and rescue experts from the US are also on their way to Taipei.
 
The quake, estimated at 7.6 on the Richter Scale, is believed to be the strongest to have hit the island this century.
 
Click here to send us your accounts of the earthquake.
 
Read your experiences of the earthquake here
 
The tremor is thought to have been even more powerful than last month's devastating quake in Turkey, which killed 15,000 and measured 7.4 on the Richter Scale.
 
President Lee Teng-hui said: "I ask the public to stay calm and the government will do its best to help the people recover from the trauma and the damage."
 
 
 
Infrastructure damage is stiill being assessed
Hospitals are struggling to cope with the enormity of the tragedy.
 
In Nantou an official said the morgues were full and appealed for body bags and refrigerators for the dead - and doctors and nurses to treat the injured.
 
State radio reported that more than six million households across the island were hit by power cuts.
 
 
More than 1,000 aftershocks were recorded in the nine hours after the quake, including one at 6.8 and 21 at five or higher on the Richter Scale, local officials said.
 
The authorities have warned that there could be aftershocks for two weeks.
 
Tuesday's quake was Taiwan's deadliest since a 7.4 magnitude tremor hit the island in 1935, killing 3,276 people.
 
Taiwan is hit by dozens of earthquakes each year, but most strike in the Pacific Ocean east of the island and rarely cause damage.
 
======================
 
The entire island is devastated. If you think that with the few days remaining that they will be able to marshall enough efforts towards Y2K when their whole island is smashed, you have another thing coming.
 
Taiwan is a substantial force in the global economy.
 
Taiwan is gone.
 
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_453000/453878.stm
--
Paul Milne
"If you live within 5 miles of a 7-11, you're toast"



-- a (a@a.a), September 22, 1999

Answers

...and also a very vulnerable time militarily for an attack by China!

-- (snowleopard6@webtv.net), September 22, 1999.

Doesn't it kinda make you wonder how many chips and systems and software and all that stuff that was destined for the US and other countries to complete their remediation that was going to be finished by Oct. or Nov. or Dec is now dust and/or ashes or smashed to smithereens under a pile of rubble? And will this be spun into the reason why things fail in January? Can't you just hear it? "Well, we WOULD have been ready except they had this earthquake in Taiwan and then our chips were delayed so we weren't able to finish our remediation...so you can't sue us 'cause it wasn't our "fault" they had an earthquake, it was their "fault"..."

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), September 22, 1999.

I'm not much of a believer in Bible much less Bible prophecy, but maybe there is something to it all. Maybe these things have to happen to get man's attention, but then again, this world has always had earthquakes and disasters. Even though 2,000+ were killed, there were another 2,000 born today to take their place. It's the 2,000 born today that will have it the roughest, it's a crazy dangerous world.

-- half believer (halfbeliever@halfbelieverrr.com), September 22, 1999.

Interesting concept....half a believer. :> I can picture the scene:

The Judgement seat of Christ. Christ looking in the book of life...Half a believer, huh? ....nope...I never knew you.

-- Moore Dinty moore (not@thistime.com), September 22, 1999.


MDM: That's a scary thought.

a: So what will the posters here think when TOKYO gets its next BIG EARTHQUAKE? That region is long overdue for a major shift. Japan would pull out their investments in the US markets and elsewhere to reinvest them into their country for rebuilding. This is a possibility of how the crash could unfold. Hopefully not.

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), September 22, 1999.



half a believer,

Sorry for the above post. I didn't mean it as bad as it reads. I had a bad day but no excuse. Didn't mean to be rude.

-- Moore Dinty moore (not@thistime.com), September 22, 1999.


ANOTHER STRONG QUAKE STRIKES TAIWAN

TAIPEI (September 25, 1999 1:01 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -

Another strong earthquake, this one measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, struck Saturday in Taiwan's Taichung county, the worst affected area in this week's devastating quake which claimed nearly 2,000 lives, officials said.

The quake struck at 12:19 p.m. local time (11:19 p.m. Friday EDT) and originated 3.9 miles underground, about 30 miles northwest of the eastern city of Hualian, Taiwan's Seismology Bureau said.

Since Tuesday's massive 7.6 quake, the island has been rocked by close to 6,300 aftershocks, more than 60 classed as major quakes in their own right, all originating from the same epicenter in the central county of Nantou.

Saturday's was the first quake from a separate fault line to hit the island.

-- JIT RIP (stopearly@7.6), September 25, 1999.


Ominous news, very bad.

-- FOF jinxed (OO@OO.OO), September 25, 1999.

6 Month State of Emeregency Declared in Taiwan

-- sandi (sandihere@mailcity.com), September 25, 1999.

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