On Wednesday at around 7:58 am local time, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck off of Taiwan's east coast, with the epicenter 18km from Hualien City. The country issued Tsunami warnings while Japan and the Philippines also braced for possible flooding. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, this is the most powerful quake Taiwan has experienced since a 7.7 event that occurred in 1999. The USGS also says that a 6.5 aftershock occurred 13 minutes later.
At around 9 am local time, Bloomberg reported that TSMC, one of the world's largest chipmakers, had evacuated some plants as a precautionary measure. Wen-Yee Lee, a semiconductor reporter in Taiwan, tweeted an update from TSMC stating that some facilities had been evacuated as part of "internal company protocols."
