{"id":40339,"date":"2024-04-04T12:15:30","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T06:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=40339"},"modified":"2025-04-25T01:33:55","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T20:03:55","slug":"earthquake-in-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/earthquake-in-taiwan\/","title":{"rendered":"Earthquake in Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>What is Ring of Fire?<\/li>\n<li>Why is the Ring of Fire vulnerable to earthquakes?<\/li>\n<li>Why are there so many volcanoes in the Ring of Fire?<\/li>\n<li>Why is Taiwan so exposed to earthquakes?<\/li>\n<li>Preparedness of Taiwan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in News?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Taiwan was hit by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, the strongest in the last 25 years. The epicentre of the quake was located just 18 kilometres south-southwest of Hualien County, which is situated in eastern Taiwan.<\/li>\n<li>Taiwan is prone to earthquakes as it lies along the Pacific \u201cRing of Fire\u201d \u2014 where 90% of the world\u2019s earthquakes take place.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is Ring of Fire?<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"image image_resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiram-prod.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com\/Ring_of_fire_9541dcf5c1.webp\" alt=\"Ring of fire\" \/><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Ring of Fire is essentially a string of hundreds of volcanoes and earthquake-sites which runs along the Pacific Ocean.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It is a semicircle or horse shoe in shape and stretches nearly 40,250 kilometres.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Numerous tectonic plates involved<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Ring of Fire traces the meeting points of numerous tectonic plates.<\/li>\n<li>This includes the Eurasian, North American, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Caribbean, Nazca, Antarctic, Indian, Australian, Philippine, and other smaller plates.\n<ul>\n<li>All these encircle the large Pacific Plate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Runs through various countries<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It runs through 15 more countries including the USA, Indonesia, Mexico, Japan, Canada, Guatemala, Russia, Chile, Peru, and the Philippines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why is the Ring of Fire vulnerable to earthquakes?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Ring of Fire witnesses so many earthquakes due to constant sliding past, colliding into, or moving above or below each other of the tectonic plates.<\/li>\n<li>As the edges of these plates are quite rough, they get stuck with one another while the rest of the plate keeps moving.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>An earthquake occurs when the plate has moved far enough and the edges unstick on one of the faults.\n<ul>\n<li>Taiwan experiences earthquakes due to the interactions of two tectonic plates \u2014 <strong>the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why are there so many volcanoes in the Ring of Fire?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Many of the volcanoes have been formed through a process known as subduction.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It takes place when two plates collide with each other and the heavier plate is shoved under another, creating a deep trench.\n<ul>\n<li>Basically, when a \u2018downgoing\u2019 oceanic plate [like the Pacific Plate] is shoved into a hotter mantle plate, it heats up, volatile elements mix, and this produces the magma.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The magma then rises up through the overlying plate and spurts out at the surface,\u201d which leads to the formation of volcanoes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Most of the subduction zones on the planet are located in the Ring of Fire and that\u2019s why it hosts a large number of volcanoes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why is Taiwan so exposed to earthquakes?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Location along the Pacific Ring of Fire<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Taiwan lies along the Pacific Ring of Fire, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world\u2019s earthquakes occur.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Interactions of two tectonic plates<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The area is particularly vulnerable to temblors due to the tension accumulated from the interactions of two tectonic plates &#8211; <strong>the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Landscape<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The region\u2019s mountainous landscape can magnify the ground shaking, leading to landslides.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Preparedness of Taiwan<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Damage during recent earthquake<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Recent earthquake in Taiwan measured 7.2, according to Taiwan\u2019s earthquake monitoring agency, while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.4.<\/li>\n<li>It damaged several buildings in Hualien but caused only minor losses in the capital Taipei despite being strongly felt there.<\/li>\n<li>The earthquake hit in the middle of the morning rush hour yet only slightly derailed the regular commute.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Preparedness<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The island has implemented <strong>strict building codes, a world-class seismological network, and widespread public education campaigns<\/strong> on earthquake safety.<\/li>\n<li>The government continually revises the level of quake resistance required of new and existing buildings.<\/li>\n<li>It also <strong>offers subsidies<\/strong> to residents willing to check their buildings\u2019 quake resistance.<\/li>\n<li>Taiwan also is pushing quake drills at schools and workplaces while public media and cellphones regularly carry notices about earthquakes and safety.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Q.1. What is Subduction in plate tectonics?<\/h2>\n<p>Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth&#8217;s mantle at convergent boundaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Q.2. What is epicenter of an earthquake?<\/h2>\n<p>The epicenter of an earthquake is the point on the Earth&#8217;s surface directly above the earthquake&#8217;s hypocenter or focus. The hypocenter is the location below the Earth&#8217;s surface where the earthquake begins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taiwan was hit by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, the strongest in the last 25 years. The epicentre of the quake was located just 18 kilometres south-southwest of Hualien County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":40340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}