The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii initially placed the strength of the earthquake at 7.2 on the Richter scale and said it was centered at a few miles off Taiwan’s southern tip. It said there was no threat of a Pacific-wide tsunami. Japan’s meteorological agency initially warned of a 3-foot wave heading for the northern Philippines but later said the danger had passed without incident, according to news agencies.

Local television stations reported that Taiwanese officials placed the quake at 6.7 on the Richter scale. The quake and a strong aftershock two minutes later, with an estimated strength of 6.4, were felt across the entire island of Taiwan. The quakes were unusually long, each lasting more than a minute, officials said.

A reporter’s hotel room swayed in Taipei, 200 miles from the epicenter, and the building creaked for 10 to 15 seconds during the quake and the aftershock. The hotel was not evacuated, and the streets were quiet and peaceful afterward.

The earthquake took place at 7:26 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, which was 8:26 p.m. on Tuesday evening in Taiwan.

The quake came on the second anniversary of the far more powerful one off Sumatra in Indonesia — estimated at 9.1 on the Richter scale — that triggered a tsunami up to 30 feet tall. That tsunami killed 230,000 people around the coastline of the Indian Ocean, most of them in Indonesia, and left nearly 2 million people homeless.

A Taiwanese official warned in a televised press conference on Tuesday night that there would probably be further aftershocks.

The earthquake took place close to Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second-largest city, with a population of 1.6 million people. Calls to Kaohsiung could not be completed because phone lines were busy.

Taiwan lies in one of the most earthquake-prone regions of the world. A small earthquake a little after 1 a.m. woke some in Taipei on Sunday morning.

President Chen Shui-bian personally urged yesterday the public to have faith in the country's soon-to-be inaugurated high-speed railway, one day after Premier Su Tseng-chang made a similar call and praised the bullet train following a test ride.

Chen made the appeal during a meeting held at the Presidential Office with a group of supervisory directors of three Taiwanese schools in Japan.

The president expressed hope the Japanese visitors would be able to travel by this new rail system to see whether it can compete with the Japanese Shinkansen system.

Noting that construction of the high-speed rail was conducted during his mandate, Chen hailed the system as a good example of the BOT (build-operate-transfer) model for costly public construction projects.

However, Chen urged rail system personnel to list safety as their highest priority.

THSRC chief executive officer Ou Chin-der confirmed the company received the green light yesterday from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) to begin commercial operations in 2007.

Ou said the company plans to offer a 50-percent discount price of NT$730 (US$22.30) for a one-way trip between Banciao in Taipei County and Tsoying in Kaohsiung city during a week-long trial period.

He added that the plan still requires the approval of the THSRC's board of directors.

The launch of the 345 km high-speed rail system has been delayed four times since 2003.

The MOTC gave the THSRC permission to begin passenger services amid controversy and claims by members of a safety inspection panel that the high speed rail system is unsafe because it still has many uncorrected operation defects.

The non-profit Consumers Foundation even urged the public to boycott the railway.

Foundation Chairman Cheng Jen-hung also said that THSRC offers unreasonably low insurance compensation for possible fatalities suffered in the rail system.

He noted that a passenger is required to pay a Taipei-Kaohsiung ticket price of NT$1,490, which is only slightly lower than the air fare of NT$1,970.

However, the customer gets only an insurance coverage of NT$2.5 million compared with the NT$13 million for taking airplanes, Cheng said.

At an interpellation session of the Legislative Yuan Tuesday, lawmaker Lai Shyh-bao of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) asked MOTC Vice Minister Ho Nuan-hsuen why the MOTC had failed to let the public know whether the 33 faults reported by the inspection panel have been eliminated.

Ho replied that all the defects had been double-checked and that the MOTC will publicize all information on the Internet this week to let the public know how the faults have been corrected.

Another KMT legislator said that President Chen should move his family to Kaohsiung as he promised in Kaohsiung mayoral race campaigns and take the bullet train to work in Taipei.

Most people who are wary about the safety of the new rail system might want to the bullet trains after the president first takes a regular trial ride of six months, the lawmaker added.

Meanwhile, the National Police Administration's Railway Police Bureau indicated that it has formed a high-speed rail section consisting of 223 police, with 175 having already reported for duty. The remaining 48 will be recruited soon.

The 345-km railway linking Taipei and Kaohsiung is expected to reduce travel time between Taiwan's two largest cities to 90 minutes from the current four-and-a-half hours taking the traditional train service offered by the Taiwan Railway Administration.

The high-speed rail line traverses 18 counties and major cities and 68 townships in Taiwan's western corridor. The initial passenger services will cover eight stations: Taipei, Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan, and Kaohsiung.

Raspberry blowing captured on film at 500 frames per second. [via]

A 27-year-old man was taking a train from Wuchang to Guangzhou in China when a little mishap caused him to drop his cell phone into the toilet bowl while using the toilet.

In a state of panic, he tried to fish it out but got his hand stuck instead. The attendants on board the train tried to free his hand from the compartment below for 3 hours but to no avail. It even got worse as his hand had now gotten deeper into the hole. As such, they had no choice but to stop at the next station to get some help.

Technicians removed part of the floorboard and the man was sent to the hospital with his hand still stuck. At the hospital, his hand was freed without further incident. By now, 8 hours had already elapsed. This poor guy must have suffered badly from both the pain and pungent stench! A total of 1,300 passengers were delayed for 5 hours as a result of this incident.

Link & Image: XinHua

Wait until it travels to the bowel! - let's see dignity then.