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Chi-Chi, Taiwan Earthquake, September 20, 1999 |
| On September 21, 1999, at 1:47 am local time (September 20 at 17:47 GMT), a magnitude MW 7.6 earthquake was felt throughout the island of Taiwan. A five county area, including the city of Taichung, experienced the greatest number of casualties and most severe damage. 2,405 deaths and 10,718 injuries were reported. As many as 82,000 housing units were damaged or destroyed, resulting in nearly 600,000 people being temporarily or permanently displaced from their homes. |
Along Chelongpu Fault | |
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Fault scarp on street with four meters of vertical offset. Note the height of the basketball hoop. Note apparently undamaged structures on the left on the raised portion of the fault. |
Along Chelongpu Fault | |
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Damage to a house on the fault shown in the previous picture. Note the unsupported portion of the porch. Note also the undamaged structures on the dropped portion of the fault down the street. The red number 61 has been spray painted on the house by damage assessment teams. |
Along Chelongpu Fault | |
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One of the spectacular vertical offsets along the fault has formed a new waterfall in the Tachia River northeast of Fengyuen. The new waterfall has an 8-meter vertical fault offset. |
Taichung | |
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Partial collapse of an internal column. Note exposed rebar. Failure occurred at the level of the less open and therefore stiffer second story floor. |
Taichung | |
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Toppled building blocks traffic in the street. Note the power lines. Power lines were often pulled down when buildings failed. |
Taichung | |
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Partially collapsed 15-story high-rise building. Building was constructed of reinforced concrete with infill brick partitions. There was beam column joint failure at the façade and the first floor collapsed in the right section of the building. |
Fengyuan | |
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Overrun tree at Fengyuan. The roof of a collapsed structure lies next to the tree. Note the computer monitor and household items on the ground next to the tree. |
Fengyuan | |
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Fault scarp in the rice field near Fengyuan. The fault underlies the green rice field and the overturned earth in the foreground. Note leaning trees on the left. The middle tree is a brownish color and appears to be dying perhaps because of earthquake damage to its root system. Faults near Fengyuan were one to six meters in height. |
Fengyuan | |
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Fengyuan Cemetery after the earthquake. Ancestors had to be reburied after the bodies were expelled from their graves by the earth shaking. This is a common phenomenon in large earthquakes. Note fault offset on the drainage ditch in the foreground. |
Fengyuan | |
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View from the top of the damaged ShihKang Dam near Fengyuen. The fault passed directly beneath one end of the dam with about ten meters of vertical offset and two meters of horizontal offset. |
Fengyuan | |
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Oblique view of the damaged ShihKang Dam near Fengyuen. The fault goes directly under the damaged portion of the dam. The dam was 50 km from the epicenter. The severe damage to the dam cut off the water supply from the reservoir. |
Fengyuan | |
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Vertical offset in road on top of dam northeast of Fengyuen. Offset is eight to ten meters. Compare height of offset with height of people. |
Fengyuan | |
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Failed bridge west of ShihKang Dam. Several bridges collapsed in the northern part of the faulting region. These failures appeared to be due to the road slabs being pulled off the supporting piers. In most cases alternate routes that avoided damaged bridges were available. |
Dongshi | |
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Tilted building. Structural support on one side of the building failed. |
Dongshi | |
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Column failure in a building partially buried a motorcycle. Note bent exposed rebar. |
Dongshi | |
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Tilted building. Structural support on one side of the building failed. Other structures in the photo are also tilted in various directions. |
Dongshi | |
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Column failure. This type of column failure on the first floor contributed to tipped structures. Civil and structural engineers from Taipei who volunteered on a rotating basis performed damage assessments in this area. Note the bent and twisted pipe. |
Dongshi | |
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The car was pinched when the first story of the building collapsed. Many first stories were used for business and were more open than higher stories creating ¿soft¿ stories on the first level. |
Dongshi | |
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Collapsed column on a fifteen-story building. The damaged column is near the center of the picture just below the square sign and behind the motorcycle. |
Dongshi | |
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A close-up of the base of a collapsed column on a fifteen-story building. |