On Wednesday, April 3, at 6:30 pm, Taiwan experienced a magnitude 7.4 earthquake, one of the worst in the area in 25 years. Due to this tragedy, many residents lost their loved ones and their homes. 

After the natural disaster, news outlets reported that about nine people died and 50 others went missing. Furthermore, approximately 1,000 people got injured and 100 were stuck inside the destroyed buildings with fear. Currently, the rescue teams are still trying to find the missing people and residents who got trapped inside buildings.

Scientists say that this accident happened because the area is vulnerable to temblors due to the tension accumulated from the interactions of two tectonic plates. Although the earthquake did create a disaster, many say that Taiwan was prepared for this earthquake. In the past, Taiwan experienced a similar situation, called the Chi-Chi quake where 2,400 civilians died. Because of this event, Professor A. Wang Yu of the National Taiwan University’s geology department said that they had learned numerous lessons. Some of them are the improvement of building codes and understanding the warning signs of an earthquake. For instance, Taiwan learned to allow a series of new sensors and monitoring stations across the area. Although it was a horrible disaster that took place recently, the new assessments that Taiwan put in place undoubtedly saved numerous lives.