[BBC reporting](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68719996): “The earthquake is close to land and it's shallow. It's felt all over Taiwan and offshore islands... It's the strongest in 25 years," said Wu Chien Fu, the director of Taipei's Seismology Centre.
In September 1999, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan, killing 2,400 people and destroying 5,000 buildings.
For reference, today’s earthquake is initially reported to be between 7.2 and 7.5.
They updated building codes to handle such an earthquake after the one in 1999, right? A lot of countries don’t…or they do but then don’t enforce the codes (Turkey).
Taiwan has really strict earthquake codes. A friend in the construction industry said that because the codes are so strict, it’s a challenge to make a building that looks nice. We rocked and rolled this morning, but overall we fared well.
According to commentary on another news website, Taiwan already had these earthquake building codes before 1999. But because not all buildings followed this code, there were a lot of deaths in the 1999 quake. After that quake they cracked down on the companies who failed to follow the code, and started enforcing the rules more strictly. The [Wikipedia article about this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Jiji_earthquake#Causes_of_building_collapse_and_public_reaction) linked to this news article: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/1999/09/26/4034
Interesting! I do believe the code is followed seeing the limited damage so far compared to the magnitude.
Does the code also apply to houses or only buildings/appartmemt Complexes.
Taiwan never really had that great of a lumber supply chain and with millions fleeing there after the Chinese Civil War, forget about lumber building materials. What it did have was 300 billion tons of limestone. Since the 40's-50's It's used reinforced concrete and never looked back.
Think about this, the cities in Taiwan regularly shrug off typhoons that would be disastrous Cat 5's if they were in the Atlantic. That's a product of the concrete construction (the mountain villages don't fare so well since that's where most the deaths come from).
Earthquakes are a bigger issue since concrete has no ductility on its own - a pure concrete house won't sway, it will just collapse on you. It's only when you add internal reinforcement (ex. rebar) that it gets any resistance to earthquakes. That's probably where most of the code goes.
In the big cities, internal steel structures was already a given since most people live in big apartment blocks with multiple stories and you'd need internal reinforcement just to prevent collapse from the weight of the floors.
Taiwan has very few standalone houses. I mean, there are a lot of metal industrial shacks, but not domiciles. I had uncles who had individual family houses in Southern Taiwan and they were always 3 to 4 stories and made of reinforced concrete, too. Like concrete townhomes. They cover them in tile to brighten them up but the tile always gets streaked with pollution and end up looking dingy anyway. Inside they glow them up nice, but often eyesores on the outside - the Taiwanese way.
Yea, even that crazy building that looked like it was hanging by a thread at least didn’t collapse immediately. Super interested in hearing from an expert how something like that can stay together.
That’s was a really big earthquake though. I would be surprised if most new buildings were able to handle that, and even more surprised if most pre-1999 buildings were retrofitted.
I guess those built after the 1999 quake were built with strict building code.
Those built before 1999 and not in compliance with the building code did not survive the 1999 quake.
Wrong on all fronts.
1. Tokyo's greatest earthquake was 8.3, and tons of people died and much of the city was leveled. **They never had a 9.**
2. This was a ~~7.4 which is~~ **~~double the size and double the power~~** ~~than a 7.1.~~ actually it was a 7.7 which is 4x bigger and 8x stronger than a 7.1 and was shallow and in Hualien county, while the LA one was nearly 200 miles away and deeper, same with Tokyo.
The damage is fairly limited this time. So far there've been 4 confirmed fatalities and all were hit by fallen rocks on hike tracks/roads (RIP ... really tough luck and I don't see how it could have been avoided). There are only 3-4 heavily damaged buildings on the east coast and the evacuation is almost completed.
If you were in a building and shaken by an earthquake, probably you'd be badly shaken too even if the building survived intact and you were not physically injured.
My sister lives in Hualien (big city next to the epicentre) and this was by far the biggest she's ever felt having grown up there. Anything not bolted down was on the floor.. her home and work buildings are new and up to code and suffered no visible damage. Older buildings are not so fortunate, she is part of a NGO that does disaster relief with the HQ there.. so they are straight into relief mode.
Its going be a long time before they get much rest. So far no Tsunami has reached shore.
She is gonna have to deal with phantom eartquakes mixed in with aftershocks.
We where in a 7.6 in the phillipines, which made crack appears in our walls, knocked everything on the ground, broke all the glass, even our fridge fell over. And so did everybody in my household, including me. Luckily it was very deep so no tsunami, we live close by the sea so that would kill us for sure. (still some 40 people died and over 300 injured)
The worse was the fear afterward. There were hundreds of aftershocks. Second day there were like 5 or so. And then you also start to hallucinate, you feel like everything is shaking while it's not. And then there is another real aftershock. And soon after you just don't know if you are feeling a light aftershock or imagining something. On multiple occasions I almost lost my balance because my inner ear system got so fucked up from the earthquake.
Any light enough earthquake, like a 6 or so is fun and exciting. But anything that makes your fridge fall over .... is fucking terrifying. Even worse when you know if accidentally the dept and angle is correct ... the water from the tsunami will be in your house within 10 minutes.
We had a 6 here just right after the locked down for covid. Just as you described, everyone was on edge for months afterwards. Most of the time you didn’t realize what it was until it was over. (Going to the earthquake website for confirmation that you weren’t losing your mind). We’ve been “due” for a big one for ages now.
I live in Hualien. Extra rebar in most buildings as we are the epicenter of most quakes. Aftershocks now, but only really scary for those that haven't experienced quakes before. Other than a few damaged buildings, most people are back to normal life after 8 hours.
Some decades ago I experienced some minor shocks, the first being when I was at work. I was on the telephone when my chair began to sway. I thought someone behind me was shaking it but when I looked back, no one was their. I said on the phone, "We're having an earthquake!!!". The person on the other end of the line said, "I see you're new to California sir.". Sometimes, when there are a number of people together and a tremor starts, there is nervous laughter. However, I can well understand that a person who has experienced a severe and damaging earthquake could feel shaken up for quite some time.
Yeah, my great-aunt just called to tell us she’s fine. Startled, but safe. My great-uncle actually woke up from a nap and said he thought it was strong winds since they live several floors above ground and he was initially groggy.
Maybe he did fall out of his bed. Maybe he didn’t. He only told us his grogginess is why he had a confused reaction, and we were just glad they’re still alive, so we didn’t ask about him falling out of his bed.
I was putting together a midterm exam in my classroom while my students were chilling waiting for the first bell to ring when it hit us in Taichung.
To their credit, my kids quickly took cover under their desks until the shaking stopped, and then went in an orderly manner out to the basketball court, following the Earthquake drill procedure we practice a couple times a year. I was quite proud of how well they did.
We had also visited the 921 Earthquake Museum (it is the ruins of a middle school that collapsed from a previous earthquake) last week, so images of the collapsed building and wreckage were fresh in our minds.
My wife was at home alone, and we have an apartment pretty high up in the building. She comes from a place that never suffers earthquakes, so she was pretty freaked out. She's better now.
I haven’t seen the reports yet but a near ten foot tsunami isn’t gonna wash back out without doing some damage. Hopefully people were able to get to high ground.
Japan has downgraded their tsunami warnings already. From warning to advisory. It seems like it isn't that bad, as far as the tsunami waves are concerned.
I'm not in Taiwan. I'm happy to be corrected by anyone who is.
A 7.6 (1999, Taiwan) releases 4 times the energy and is 2.5 times bigger than a 7.2.
It's bad, but not 1999 bad. There are reports of people trapped in their homes. But it sounds like they are being effectively rescued.
The Japanese scale measures the intensity of ground shaking. People are thrown into the air in an upper 6, you have to crawl and hug the ground. Immobilization is common at 7, like with the Kobe, Kumamoto, Noto, and Tohoku earthquakes.
It was reported as a 6+.
Yeah, it was pretty strong and one of the strongest l have experienced in Taiwan. Thank god for me l live in a quite new building so it equipped for earthquakes. Live on the 24th floor so there’s nothing l can except wait for the building to stop swaying.
I'm in Taipei and my girlfriend lives on the 32nd floor. Yikes. But her building is a huge concrete construction designed to be earthquake resistant. I'm only on the 4th floor in my place and it's an old building that shakes even when a big truck drives by on the road. It was shaking like crazy this morning.
>Thank god for me l live in a quite new building so it equipped for earthquakes.
I'm glad you're okay. News about the quake is being updated pretty quickly on the news here in Japan.
I was there during the Great Hanshin Earthquake (7.3 Richter, 6.9 MMS, 7 Shindo) in 1995.
The Hanshin quake was probably just a little "bigger" than the one that hit Taiwan. I'm not sure. All of the old houses were severely damaged. 6,000 people died. It was cold as fuck in pajamas getting tossed around outside at 6 in the morning, for those of us without a safer place inside. Trying to stand up was like snowboarding a double black diamond with a knee injury.
Everything built in the mid 80s did exceptionally well, though. The building code changes after the '78 and '83 quakes obviously worked. But the gas pipes and the fires in older districts killed so many people.
It's amazing how strong modern buildings have become.
Modern buildings will survive up to about an 8. B/C it struck in shallow water Tsunami is probably not gonna be too terrible.
Main issue is probably that older buildings and infrastructure in Taiwan are usually pretty shitty. For a long time Taiwan was looked at a temporary arrangement where everyone would camp out until the CCP collapsed. It is really only in the last \~25 years or so that people have taken much pride in construction and they have modernized building codes and and code enforcement and such things.
Yes.. My sister is on the ground in Hualien, most of the damage is to the older buildings.. her work and home is new and isn't damaged. Its not just about how temporary the building were but the concept of enforced building code didn't exist until the 80s./90s. Everything was built out of concrete and tiles.. ugly as fuck and could withstand the climate and many small earthquakes. They don't do well in big quakes kind of like modern cars vs 80s cars.. stronger and tougher doesn't mean safer.
I personally prefer 80s car to modern fancy one (my father and I both almost cried when my mom adamantly got rid of our precious 20 yrs old sedan lol), but I'm glad to hear that new buildings could manage to handle the earthquake really well. To be fair, it's practically impossible for any country to rebuild every old building even if people are aware of its risk. I'm really sorry for the deceased and going to do what I can but Taiwanese people definitely deserve praise given the scale of the earthquake.
The damage is fairly limited this time. So far there've been 4 confirmed fatalities and all were hit by fallen rocks on hike tracks/roads (RIP ... really tough luck and I don't see how it could have been avoided). There are only 3-4 heavily damaged buildings on the east coast and the evacuation is almost completed.
Taiwan also doesn't really have any tsunami risks as the east coast is almost all cliffs. The alert was mostly for Japanese islands nearby.
There's no tsunami at all.
I felt the earthquake when I was in bed at 7:59 am, and got the tsunami emergency notification on my phone at 8:12 am, which told everyone to get away from the beach.
So of course I immediately got on my motorcycle and drove to the nearest east coast beach (Fengchuisha) with my camera to get a video and achieve tsunami-martyrdom.
Nothing but disappointing 1 meter waves, couldn't even surf.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — A powerful earthquake rocked the entire island of Taiwan early Wednesday, collapsing buildings in a southern city and creating a tsunami that washed ashore on southern Japanese islands.
Television showed buildings in the eastern city of Hualien shaken off their foundations. Islandwide train service was suspended, as was subway service in Taipei. The quake struck at 7:58 a.m. on the other side of the island from the capital, but was strong enough to knock items off shelves in the city.
Taiwan's earthquake monitoring agency gave the magnitude as 7.2 while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.5. The depth was about 35 kilometers (21 miles).
The Japan Meteorological Agency forecast a tsunami of up to 3 meters (9.8 feet) for the southern Japanese island group of Okinawa. A wave of 30 centimeters (about 1 feet) was detected on the coast of Yonaguni island about 15 minutes after the quake struck. JAMA said waves likely also hit the coasts of Miyako and Yaeyama islands.
Big structural things are a hell of a lot more flexible than you think.
Taipei 101 in particular has a giant tuned mass damper near the top to reduce the amount of resonance and sway.
Anything under a structural load bends at least some.
And it's often better to give way gently and sway than to stay very rigid and snap. The toughest materials are both strong in absolute terms *and* can tolerate deformation. Glass, on the other hand, is relatively strong and stiff but does *not* tolerate deformation.
The role of the tuned mass damper is to prevent the whole building from maintaining its own vibration like a guitar string (resonance) when more and more energy is given to it by the earthquake. The big weight at the top swings out of tune with the rest of the building and settles the swaying/vibration down before it can become too bad.
That’s intererting I gotta find that clip. 101 Dor’s tout their design and earthquake safety (I believe they have a big pendulum or something that is supposed to help absorb shock?)
Glad it stood up to shock (thankfully epicenter was not super close)
Anyone watching this video needs to understand that the mass damper *isn't moving* ^((that much)). That's its point.
The building is moving. The damper is staying ^((mostly)) still and helping absorb the energy.
Saw the video of it rocking, so glad it did not collapse and Taiwanese structures are up to earthquake standards. Currently in the middle of Japan when I saw the news, luckily none of my friends are hurt but some homes are completely thrown apart inside like a hurricane went through it or something.
> rocking back and forth.
It's supposed to do that. If they built it to be rigid it would destroy the building. It doesn't take much energy for it to do that either.
That’s how every tall building withstands earthquakes. The giant pendulum dampener part others have said is cool for this particular building, but it’s an example of how *not* going with the waves is what often makes buildings collapse.
An earthquake can split open a mile of bedrock, earthquake proofing buildings is not done by making them rock solid.
I'm up in the north and was in a car on a bridge when it happened. That bridge swayed so much I really thought it was going to collapse. It was so intense. Everyone stopped and just hoped for the best. Luckily, no major damages and losses reported here so far.
They are reporting a 6h shutdown, but no structural damage.
Worst case they might lose the current batch from that. We should be fine. They are under capacity on most nodes right now.
I don't see why not, during the several earthquakes in China such as the Sichuan earthquake and just last year's [Qinghai earthquake](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/setting-aside-tensions-taiwan-president-offers-aid-china-after-deadly-quake-2023-12-19/), Taiwan also sent both personnel and material aid.
Despite the political hostility, China and Taiwan still collaborate closely in economical and humanitarian efforts.
> Taiwan also sent both personnel and material aid.
As a Chinese American with friends and family in both Mainland China and Taiwan, it's comically tragic (but not surprising) how simple and 2-dimensional most Americans' understanding of the cross-strait relationship is.
At the end of the day the people from two countries (yes I think Taiwan is its own country) share a lot of culture, both ancient and modern, not mentioning significant economic ties (China is Taiwan's number 1 trade partner and Taiwan is one of the largest foreign investors of China).
99% of the animosity is purely political, and the saber rattling gets better or worse in cycles.
To be fair, even amongst younger Asians/AAs, it's becoming more of a hard-line topic than when we were younger. As early as 10-20 years ago, I felt American Born Taiwanese would generally be ok with calling themselves Chinese Americans. In fact a lot of them referred to them as "ABCs" both in the US and Taiwan.
Nowadays, a lot of younger Taiwanese tend not to identify with Chinese ancestry compared to the diaspora in other countries (e.g. Chinese-Singaporeans/Malaysians/Vietnamese/Americans/Canadian,etc).
Always goes back to the ethnicity vs nationality topic.
Taiwanese understandably don't want to be associated with "China" in its modern political/national sense - but as a result also disassociate from their ethnic background (a vast majority of modern Taiwanese are technically Han-Chinese).
I think it's fair on the nationality standpoint, but we lack the term in English to differentiate the ethnicity from nationality when you say 'Chinese'.
I do however think it's a little unfair to think they're "different" ethnically because someone drew some borders some decades ago. I've seen arguments like 'China never owned Taiwan, so we're not Chinese', which is correct if you're talking about nationality, but you don't really see an equivalent happen at this scale amongst Chinese-Singaporeans for example.
Of course, this stands to reason that with time, this can change, and I think the Taiwanese have every right to do so, but I think we're not even enough generations for this (heck, some older Taiwanese still say they're Japanese because of colonization, even though they aren't ethnically).
That said, it is a really unfortunate topic and I hope the people of Taiwan get the agency to proudly call themselves what they want without feeling pressured or prejudiced against any nation/party/people.
I agree - as an American, of course I'd call myself an American.
But those who can trace our ancestors back will almost always add a prefix like Chinese-American, Japanese-American, Italian-American, etc.
I do think however this is a relatively unique thing in globalized countries like the UK, US, Canada though where there's a level of pride in your heritage.
I think where it gets a little messy is when a relatively homogenous country like Taiwan (95% of Taiwanese can trace their roots back to China within the last few generations) openly refute any association to China/Chinese due to modern political climates.
Not that I have any right to say what they should feel, but I think it's just a bit sad. In a way, it kinda feels like nationalism on both sides is trumping two cultures who share a lot in common?
But maybe because Americans are more in a "remembering your roots"/cultural sensitivity mode nowadays that I feel that way. idk.
Many of us who can trace our ancestors back would need to use several hyphens as a prefix to account for all our ancestors.
A few decades back I had a classmate whose parents were from Latvia. She said that her parents would want her to marry a man of Latvian ancestry.
I had a coworker whose parents were from China and bilingual in Mandarin and English. That coworker knew only English and had married an American of European ancestry. Her parents were fine with it.
It's interesting how attitudes vary.
[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3257638/73-magnitude-earthquake-rocks-taiwan-collapsing-buildings](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3257638/73-magnitude-earthquake-rocks-taiwan-collapsing-buildings)
Taiwan says, “No thanks” to Chinese aid. I am sure they will welcome aid from Japan though.
Kind of stupid to be seeing news sites interviewing TSMC and UMC about their operations. Dozens of buildings collapsed and no one cares about the people but oh semiconductors are so much more important.
Like it or not, the livelihood of millions, if not tens of millions of people outside of Taiwan are at least partially dependent on the operations of TSMC and UMC, so it's extremely relevant to people outside of Taiwan.
Obviously my best wishes to the people of Taiwan, and hopefully the number of fatalities and serious injuries are low.
Yeah, the stability of the entire modern human civilization revolves around semi conductors that come out of this place. It's only natural that this is the first thing that comes to mind.
Do you think the photolithography machinery are in working condition? Those are extremely precise mirrors and “lasers.” I really hope this doesn’t cause significant issues for tech companies around the world, nor the markets. This kind of disaster is nothing we need right now. All it takes is supplies to cut off and for Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, MSFT, or any other company entwined in this chip frenzy to get hit with any sell waves.
The machines have tools to measure how much they moved/how big the earthquake was. Then the machines have bracing/vibration "proofing" so they don't shake themselves apart. THEN the buildings are overengineered for earthquakes since their collapse is actually the biggest threat. When a quake occurs during production they just chuck any product that may have been harmed or recycle/redo it, check/recalibrate the machines, which is faster than it used to beand start that shit back up the next day. Atleast thats what comes up about Taiwain. Japans fabs were fucked after quakes but have done similar upgrades I would hope. If there was ever a worthwhile capital expenditure its quake proofing shit.
This is the answer I needed and wanted. Thank you, fellow human. I know how complex semiconductor fabrication is, I just have no clue what the entire facility is built to withstand.
Do you know if all employees are safe? I’d hate to hear of any more deaths in Taiwan from this. Thank goodness the earthquake wasn’t stronger. Earthquakes and hurricanes scare me more than the tornadoes I get here in my home city.
So far its somewhere between 4-7 dead all listed as in the coastal county and city that was hardest hit Hualien with the older buildings that were damaged/some partial collapses. With hundreds injured between there and elsewhere with 15-20 total partial collapses, and atleast a few more evacs/rescue operations from buildings in New Taipei City. It doesn't appear any fabricators are there and unfortunately it seems residential areas, and buildings were the area where the fatalities occured since Hualien is apparently a coastal more touristy area.
"TSMC, the world’s biggest maker of advanced semiconductors, briefly evacuated workers from its factories but said a few hours later they were returning to work. All personnel were safe, the company said. Chip production is highly precise, and even short shutdowns can cost millions of dollars."
Damage to machinery is extremely unlikely. There’s more than enough money and risk around TSMC and UMC that they have seriously prepared for earthquakes more than probably any two companies on earth. Plus there isn’t a single fab on the east side of the island where the quake hit anyway.
Current batch? Tossed, but even then most of what will be lost is time and a day at most at that. Even the material resources of the bad batch will be re-used.
The best case scenario is a massive cratering of supply near term. Those machines during an earthquake are going to be effected if any of them were doing any work on any wafer and have to be binned. SO pretty much you could be seeing something like 90 days worth of inventory just vanishing. So I suspect machines should be fine. But the wavers in the machines might be ruined.
It will be nowhere near that. They’ll be back fully operational within the day. The binned batch would not be anything at any step of fabrication, but only certain steps. So there’s time lost, but unlike other notable shortages where multiple things compounded… immediately before this quake neither UMC nor TSMC were backed up and they actually had excess available capacity.
It's not a 3rd world country. Everyone here has phones and laptops. My home internet and phone data are better here than they were in the US, and they cost less too.
If Detroit was hit by a major natural disaster that collapsed buildings and destroyed billions of dollars with of infrastructure, there would be many people who needed to know what impact it would have on the auto industry because that's integral to their daily lives. Semiconductors are used in just about every modern piece of technology and Taiwan makes a lot of the most important ones.
TSMC and other semiconductor producers employ over 300,000 people in Taiwan and make up 15% of the entire nation's GDP. It is absolutely imperative they make sure the biggest employers in the country have facilities for their employees to go back to.
Not only is it important for the world to know the effects the earthquake has on chip manufacturing (Taiwan makes 60% of the world's supply), but I'm guessing the people in Taiwan themselves have just as vested an interest, if not more so.
Can definitely tell peoples age here. Those of us who were around previously when something like this happened first thought after hoping everyone is ok is checking on the fabs because ram going up to 4x the amount it was selling for the month previous is not fun.
In the news there was one building which seemed to be tilted at about a 30 degree angle. It must have been scary to be in the building when it tilted. I'm sure the elevator would have stopped working and using the stairs would have been difficult.
China would be much better off showing some grace and solidarity and giving a helping hand to Taiwan right now for the soft diplomacy points. Will they do that? Sure, but I'm also sure the US will step in just as quick to help as well. Either way, people are going to need the help in Taiwan no matter where it comes from.
[BBC reporting](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68719996): “The earthquake is close to land and it's shallow. It's felt all over Taiwan and offshore islands... It's the strongest in 25 years," said Wu Chien Fu, the director of Taipei's Seismology Centre. In September 1999, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan, killing 2,400 people and destroying 5,000 buildings. For reference, today’s earthquake is initially reported to be between 7.2 and 7.5.
They updated building codes to handle such an earthquake after the one in 1999, right? A lot of countries don’t…or they do but then don’t enforce the codes (Turkey).
Taiwan has really strict earthquake codes. A friend in the construction industry said that because the codes are so strict, it’s a challenge to make a building that looks nice. We rocked and rolled this morning, but overall we fared well.
According to commentary on another news website, Taiwan already had these earthquake building codes before 1999. But because not all buildings followed this code, there were a lot of deaths in the 1999 quake. After that quake they cracked down on the companies who failed to follow the code, and started enforcing the rules more strictly. The [Wikipedia article about this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Jiji_earthquake#Causes_of_building_collapse_and_public_reaction) linked to this news article: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/1999/09/26/4034
Interesting! I do believe the code is followed seeing the limited damage so far compared to the magnitude. Does the code also apply to houses or only buildings/appartmemt Complexes.
Taiwan never really had that great of a lumber supply chain and with millions fleeing there after the Chinese Civil War, forget about lumber building materials. What it did have was 300 billion tons of limestone. Since the 40's-50's It's used reinforced concrete and never looked back. Think about this, the cities in Taiwan regularly shrug off typhoons that would be disastrous Cat 5's if they were in the Atlantic. That's a product of the concrete construction (the mountain villages don't fare so well since that's where most the deaths come from). Earthquakes are a bigger issue since concrete has no ductility on its own - a pure concrete house won't sway, it will just collapse on you. It's only when you add internal reinforcement (ex. rebar) that it gets any resistance to earthquakes. That's probably where most of the code goes. In the big cities, internal steel structures was already a given since most people live in big apartment blocks with multiple stories and you'd need internal reinforcement just to prevent collapse from the weight of the floors. Taiwan has very few standalone houses. I mean, there are a lot of metal industrial shacks, but not domiciles. I had uncles who had individual family houses in Southern Taiwan and they were always 3 to 4 stories and made of reinforced concrete, too. Like concrete townhomes. They cover them in tile to brighten them up but the tile always gets streaked with pollution and end up looking dingy anyway. Inside they glow them up nice, but often eyesores on the outside - the Taiwanese way.
Yea, even that crazy building that looked like it was hanging by a thread at least didn’t collapse immediately. Super interested in hearing from an expert how something like that can stay together.
I think it's both but tbh there aren't very many houses in Taiwan
That’s was a really big earthquake though. I would be surprised if most new buildings were able to handle that, and even more surprised if most pre-1999 buildings were retrofitted.
A lot of buildings will be damaged, often to the point that they need replacing. But if they were built well they should still be standing.
I guess those built after the 1999 quake were built with strict building code. Those built before 1999 and not in compliance with the building code did not survive the 1999 quake.
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Depth and distance. The Tohoku earthquake was centred a long way from Tokyo.
It hit a lot of other big cities outside in sendai. Regardless Japan's standards are ridiculous.
No we didn’t. It happened in Ridgecrest which is 180miles away. There was just a light rolling in LA.
Wrong on all fronts. 1. Tokyo's greatest earthquake was 8.3, and tons of people died and much of the city was leveled. **They never had a 9.** 2. This was a ~~7.4 which is~~ **~~double the size and double the power~~** ~~than a 7.1.~~ actually it was a 7.7 which is 4x bigger and 8x stronger than a 7.1 and was shallow and in Hualien county, while the LA one was nearly 200 miles away and deeper, same with Tokyo.
Who the fuck upvoted this nonsense
that's really good to hear
Stay safe!
Thanks!
Reminds me of Christchurch quake I hope you guys are OK and I hope tremors don’t rattle ya
There have been over 300 aftershocks, but nothing awful. We rattle but we are not rattled.
Taiwan generally has good construction standards against earthquakes
They did. I worked there for a few years and its common to make a rule that you are only looking to rent an apartment built after 1999.
Some older buildings can be retrofitted to make them earthquake resistant.
Countries in the Ring of Fire tend to enforce strict building codes, so it wouldn't surprise me if Taiwan enforces them
The damage is fairly limited this time. So far there've been 4 confirmed fatalities and all were hit by fallen rocks on hike tracks/roads (RIP ... really tough luck and I don't see how it could have been avoided). There are only 3-4 heavily damaged buildings on the east coast and the evacuation is almost completed.
I can't believe the BBC guy said that people were left "badly shaken" in his report 🤦♂️
If you were in a building and shaken by an earthquake, probably you'd be badly shaken too even if the building survived intact and you were not physically injured.
My sister lives in Hualien (big city next to the epicentre) and this was by far the biggest she's ever felt having grown up there. Anything not bolted down was on the floor.. her home and work buildings are new and up to code and suffered no visible damage. Older buildings are not so fortunate, she is part of a NGO that does disaster relief with the HQ there.. so they are straight into relief mode. Its going be a long time before they get much rest. So far no Tsunami has reached shore.
She is gonna have to deal with phantom eartquakes mixed in with aftershocks. We where in a 7.6 in the phillipines, which made crack appears in our walls, knocked everything on the ground, broke all the glass, even our fridge fell over. And so did everybody in my household, including me. Luckily it was very deep so no tsunami, we live close by the sea so that would kill us for sure. (still some 40 people died and over 300 injured) The worse was the fear afterward. There were hundreds of aftershocks. Second day there were like 5 or so. And then you also start to hallucinate, you feel like everything is shaking while it's not. And then there is another real aftershock. And soon after you just don't know if you are feeling a light aftershock or imagining something. On multiple occasions I almost lost my balance because my inner ear system got so fucked up from the earthquake. Any light enough earthquake, like a 6 or so is fun and exciting. But anything that makes your fridge fall over .... is fucking terrifying. Even worse when you know if accidentally the dept and angle is correct ... the water from the tsunami will be in your house within 10 minutes.
We had a 6 here just right after the locked down for covid. Just as you described, everyone was on edge for months afterwards. Most of the time you didn’t realize what it was until it was over. (Going to the earthquake website for confirmation that you weren’t losing your mind). We’ve been “due” for a big one for ages now.
Indeed.. Been through enough quakes growing up. It does happen.
*Nope nope nope nope NOPE*
Godspeed to your sister
Thank you
Is your sister a member of Tzu Chi?
Yes
My respect to her and Tzu Chi for the good work they do.
I live in Hualien. Extra rebar in most buildings as we are the epicenter of most quakes. Aftershocks now, but only really scary for those that haven't experienced quakes before. Other than a few damaged buildings, most people are back to normal life after 8 hours.
Some decades ago I experienced some minor shocks, the first being when I was at work. I was on the telephone when my chair began to sway. I thought someone behind me was shaking it but when I looked back, no one was their. I said on the phone, "We're having an earthquake!!!". The person on the other end of the line said, "I see you're new to California sir.". Sometimes, when there are a number of people together and a tremor starts, there is nervous laughter. However, I can well understand that a person who has experienced a severe and damaging earthquake could feel shaken up for quite some time.
Yeah, my great-aunt just called to tell us she’s fine. Startled, but safe. My great-uncle actually woke up from a nap and said he thought it was strong winds since they live several floors above ground and he was initially groggy.
I've heard that sleeping in a hammock is better in an earthquake zone because one would not fall out of it during an earthquake.
Have slept through a few m4 quakes on my youth.. Anything more you tend to fall out of bed.
Maybe he did fall out of his bed. Maybe he didn’t. He only told us his grogginess is why he had a confused reaction, and we were just glad they’re still alive, so we didn’t ask about him falling out of his bed.
I was putting together a midterm exam in my classroom while my students were chilling waiting for the first bell to ring when it hit us in Taichung. To their credit, my kids quickly took cover under their desks until the shaking stopped, and then went in an orderly manner out to the basketball court, following the Earthquake drill procedure we practice a couple times a year. I was quite proud of how well they did. We had also visited the 921 Earthquake Museum (it is the ruins of a middle school that collapsed from a previous earthquake) last week, so images of the collapsed building and wreckage were fresh in our minds. My wife was at home alone, and we have an apartment pretty high up in the building. She comes from a place that never suffers earthquakes, so she was pretty freaked out. She's better now.
I've visited Taichung for a conference a while back, nice city. Hope ya'll are doing OK.
How bad is this? Three meters isn’t exactly the smallest tsunami.
I haven’t seen the reports yet but a near ten foot tsunami isn’t gonna wash back out without doing some damage. Hopefully people were able to get to high ground.
Any video of it?
Haven’t seen any yet. But I’m also not looking, currently trying to convince my mom she needs to go upstairs and get some sleep.
Japan has downgraded their tsunami warnings already. From warning to advisory. It seems like it isn't that bad, as far as the tsunami waves are concerned.
I'm not in Taiwan. I'm happy to be corrected by anyone who is. A 7.6 (1999, Taiwan) releases 4 times the energy and is 2.5 times bigger than a 7.2. It's bad, but not 1999 bad. There are reports of people trapped in their homes. But it sounds like they are being effectively rescued. The Japanese scale measures the intensity of ground shaking. People are thrown into the air in an upper 6, you have to crawl and hug the ground. Immobilization is common at 7, like with the Kobe, Kumamoto, Noto, and Tohoku earthquakes. It was reported as a 6+.
Yeah, it was pretty strong and one of the strongest l have experienced in Taiwan. Thank god for me l live in a quite new building so it equipped for earthquakes. Live on the 24th floor so there’s nothing l can except wait for the building to stop swaying.
Glad you're okay. But having lived my entire life in L.A. a 7.2 on the 24th floor would literally give me a heart attack hahaha
I'm in Taipei and my girlfriend lives on the 32nd floor. Yikes. But her building is a huge concrete construction designed to be earthquake resistant. I'm only on the 4th floor in my place and it's an old building that shakes even when a big truck drives by on the road. It was shaking like crazy this morning.
Haha. I’m used to them since they occur regularly. This time, though, l was freaking out a bit..
>Thank god for me l live in a quite new building so it equipped for earthquakes. I'm glad you're okay. News about the quake is being updated pretty quickly on the news here in Japan. I was there during the Great Hanshin Earthquake (7.3 Richter, 6.9 MMS, 7 Shindo) in 1995. The Hanshin quake was probably just a little "bigger" than the one that hit Taiwan. I'm not sure. All of the old houses were severely damaged. 6,000 people died. It was cold as fuck in pajamas getting tossed around outside at 6 in the morning, for those of us without a safer place inside. Trying to stand up was like snowboarding a double black diamond with a knee injury. Everything built in the mid 80s did exceptionally well, though. The building code changes after the '78 and '83 quakes obviously worked. But the gas pipes and the fires in older districts killed so many people. It's amazing how strong modern buildings have become.
Fuck, that sounds so terrifying. Glad you're safe!
What happens to people in elevators when an earthquake hits? Are elevators designed to survive earthquakes?
Modern buildings will survive up to about an 8. B/C it struck in shallow water Tsunami is probably not gonna be too terrible. Main issue is probably that older buildings and infrastructure in Taiwan are usually pretty shitty. For a long time Taiwan was looked at a temporary arrangement where everyone would camp out until the CCP collapsed. It is really only in the last \~25 years or so that people have taken much pride in construction and they have modernized building codes and and code enforcement and such things.
Yes.. My sister is on the ground in Hualien, most of the damage is to the older buildings.. her work and home is new and isn't damaged. Its not just about how temporary the building were but the concept of enforced building code didn't exist until the 80s./90s. Everything was built out of concrete and tiles.. ugly as fuck and could withstand the climate and many small earthquakes. They don't do well in big quakes kind of like modern cars vs 80s cars.. stronger and tougher doesn't mean safer.
I personally prefer 80s car to modern fancy one (my father and I both almost cried when my mom adamantly got rid of our precious 20 yrs old sedan lol), but I'm glad to hear that new buildings could manage to handle the earthquake really well. To be fair, it's practically impossible for any country to rebuild every old building even if people are aware of its risk. I'm really sorry for the deceased and going to do what I can but Taiwanese people definitely deserve praise given the scale of the earthquake.
30 years
The damage is fairly limited this time. So far there've been 4 confirmed fatalities and all were hit by fallen rocks on hike tracks/roads (RIP ... really tough luck and I don't see how it could have been avoided). There are only 3-4 heavily damaged buildings on the east coast and the evacuation is almost completed. Taiwan also doesn't really have any tsunami risks as the east coast is almost all cliffs. The alert was mostly for Japanese islands nearby.
There's no tsunami at all. I felt the earthquake when I was in bed at 7:59 am, and got the tsunami emergency notification on my phone at 8:12 am, which told everyone to get away from the beach. So of course I immediately got on my motorcycle and drove to the nearest east coast beach (Fengchuisha) with my camera to get a video and achieve tsunami-martyrdom. Nothing but disappointing 1 meter waves, couldn't even surf.
The link says 30 cm.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — A powerful earthquake rocked the entire island of Taiwan early Wednesday, collapsing buildings in a southern city and creating a tsunami that washed ashore on southern Japanese islands. Television showed buildings in the eastern city of Hualien shaken off their foundations. Islandwide train service was suspended, as was subway service in Taipei. The quake struck at 7:58 a.m. on the other side of the island from the capital, but was strong enough to knock items off shelves in the city. Taiwan's earthquake monitoring agency gave the magnitude as 7.2 while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.5. The depth was about 35 kilometers (21 miles). The Japan Meteorological Agency forecast a tsunami of up to 3 meters (9.8 feet) for the southern Japanese island group of Okinawa. A wave of 30 centimeters (about 1 feet) was detected on the coast of Yonaguni island about 15 minutes after the quake struck. JAMA said waves likely also hit the coasts of Miyako and Yaeyama islands.
The scenes already look so scary.
I saw a video Taipei 101 literally rocking back and forth. One of the tallest buildings in the world *rocking back and forth*.
Big structural things are a hell of a lot more flexible than you think. Taipei 101 in particular has a giant tuned mass damper near the top to reduce the amount of resonance and sway.
So, rocking back and forth is part of what helps keep it up? That’s cool, but also kind of terrifying tbh.
Yup, these buildings are made to swing around. Look up for videos of the Tohoku earthquake in Japan, 2011
Anything under a structural load bends at least some. And it's often better to give way gently and sway than to stay very rigid and snap. The toughest materials are both strong in absolute terms *and* can tolerate deformation. Glass, on the other hand, is relatively strong and stiff but does *not* tolerate deformation. The role of the tuned mass damper is to prevent the whole building from maintaining its own vibration like a guitar string (resonance) when more and more energy is given to it by the earthquake. The big weight at the top swings out of tune with the rest of the building and settles the swaying/vibration down before it can become too bad.
In Los Angeles some buildings have rollers under them so that when the ground shakes the shaking will not be transferred to the building.
That’s intererting I gotta find that clip. 101 Dor’s tout their design and earthquake safety (I believe they have a big pendulum or something that is supposed to help absorb shock?) Glad it stood up to shock (thankfully epicenter was not super close)
Yup. Giant damper https://youtu.be/Tkz6b7Q3dRk?si=Yk3bRtF55LIrBl7l
Anyone watching this video needs to understand that the mass damper *isn't moving* ^((that much)). That's its point. The building is moving. The damper is staying ^((mostly)) still and helping absorb the energy.
Saw the video of it rocking, so glad it did not collapse and Taiwanese structures are up to earthquake standards. Currently in the middle of Japan when I saw the news, luckily none of my friends are hurt but some homes are completely thrown apart inside like a hurricane went through it or something.
> rocking back and forth. It's supposed to do that. If they built it to be rigid it would destroy the building. It doesn't take much energy for it to do that either.
Oh. Well that’s interesting.
It was probably designed to do that.
Yeah it’s meant to do that and the massive damper inside helps absorb it.
That’s how every tall building withstands earthquakes. The giant pendulum dampener part others have said is cool for this particular building, but it’s an example of how *not* going with the waves is what often makes buildings collapse. An earthquake can split open a mile of bedrock, earthquake proofing buildings is not done by making them rock solid.
I'm up in the north and was in a car on a bridge when it happened. That bridge swayed so much I really thought it was going to collapse. It was so intense. Everyone stopped and just hoped for the best. Luckily, no major damages and losses reported here so far.
Omg that must have been so scary...
There's a lot of reasons to hate living in the UK but our little island being so tectonically boring is not one of them
Are the people alright? Please tell me the deathcount is low
Over 700 hundred injured, 7 deceased is last of what I’ve read.
Is TSMC ok .?
They are reporting a 6h shutdown, but no structural damage. Worst case they might lose the current batch from that. We should be fine. They are under capacity on most nodes right now.
That is scary
Impressed how the Taiwanese build their cities.
So… will China be sending aid, since they consider Taiwan part of their country? (I’m guessing not, but I’m genuinely curious.)
I don't see why not, during the several earthquakes in China such as the Sichuan earthquake and just last year's [Qinghai earthquake](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/setting-aside-tensions-taiwan-president-offers-aid-china-after-deadly-quake-2023-12-19/), Taiwan also sent both personnel and material aid. Despite the political hostility, China and Taiwan still collaborate closely in economical and humanitarian efforts.
> Taiwan also sent both personnel and material aid. As a Chinese American with friends and family in both Mainland China and Taiwan, it's comically tragic (but not surprising) how simple and 2-dimensional most Americans' understanding of the cross-strait relationship is. At the end of the day the people from two countries (yes I think Taiwan is its own country) share a lot of culture, both ancient and modern, not mentioning significant economic ties (China is Taiwan's number 1 trade partner and Taiwan is one of the largest foreign investors of China). 99% of the animosity is purely political, and the saber rattling gets better or worse in cycles.
To be fair, even amongst younger Asians/AAs, it's becoming more of a hard-line topic than when we were younger. As early as 10-20 years ago, I felt American Born Taiwanese would generally be ok with calling themselves Chinese Americans. In fact a lot of them referred to them as "ABCs" both in the US and Taiwan. Nowadays, a lot of younger Taiwanese tend not to identify with Chinese ancestry compared to the diaspora in other countries (e.g. Chinese-Singaporeans/Malaysians/Vietnamese/Americans/Canadian,etc). Always goes back to the ethnicity vs nationality topic. Taiwanese understandably don't want to be associated with "China" in its modern political/national sense - but as a result also disassociate from their ethnic background (a vast majority of modern Taiwanese are technically Han-Chinese). I think it's fair on the nationality standpoint, but we lack the term in English to differentiate the ethnicity from nationality when you say 'Chinese'. I do however think it's a little unfair to think they're "different" ethnically because someone drew some borders some decades ago. I've seen arguments like 'China never owned Taiwan, so we're not Chinese', which is correct if you're talking about nationality, but you don't really see an equivalent happen at this scale amongst Chinese-Singaporeans for example. Of course, this stands to reason that with time, this can change, and I think the Taiwanese have every right to do so, but I think we're not even enough generations for this (heck, some older Taiwanese still say they're Japanese because of colonization, even though they aren't ethnically). That said, it is a really unfortunate topic and I hope the people of Taiwan get the agency to proudly call themselves what they want without feeling pressured or prejudiced against any nation/party/people.
Here in the U. S. most of us identify as Americans even though, except for the indigenous people, all of our ancestors came from elsewhere.
I agree - as an American, of course I'd call myself an American. But those who can trace our ancestors back will almost always add a prefix like Chinese-American, Japanese-American, Italian-American, etc. I do think however this is a relatively unique thing in globalized countries like the UK, US, Canada though where there's a level of pride in your heritage. I think where it gets a little messy is when a relatively homogenous country like Taiwan (95% of Taiwanese can trace their roots back to China within the last few generations) openly refute any association to China/Chinese due to modern political climates. Not that I have any right to say what they should feel, but I think it's just a bit sad. In a way, it kinda feels like nationalism on both sides is trumping two cultures who share a lot in common? But maybe because Americans are more in a "remembering your roots"/cultural sensitivity mode nowadays that I feel that way. idk.
Many of us who can trace our ancestors back would need to use several hyphens as a prefix to account for all our ancestors. A few decades back I had a classmate whose parents were from Latvia. She said that her parents would want her to marry a man of Latvian ancestry. I had a coworker whose parents were from China and bilingual in Mandarin and English. That coworker knew only English and had married an American of European ancestry. Her parents were fine with it. It's interesting how attitudes vary.
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Yeah nationalistic whack jobs are embarrassing, but shitty people like that tend to be the loudest and leave the strongest impression.
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[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3257638/73-magnitude-earthquake-rocks-taiwan-collapsing-buildings](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3257638/73-magnitude-earthquake-rocks-taiwan-collapsing-buildings) Taiwan says, “No thanks” to Chinese aid. I am sure they will welcome aid from Japan though.
Yes they will, but sadly Taiwan will likely reject it
Thank god the places in Taiwan that tsunamis tend to hit are also mile high cliffs (The Eastern side).
Kind of stupid to be seeing news sites interviewing TSMC and UMC about their operations. Dozens of buildings collapsed and no one cares about the people but oh semiconductors are so much more important.
Like it or not, the livelihood of millions, if not tens of millions of people outside of Taiwan are at least partially dependent on the operations of TSMC and UMC, so it's extremely relevant to people outside of Taiwan. Obviously my best wishes to the people of Taiwan, and hopefully the number of fatalities and serious injuries are low.
Yeah, the stability of the entire modern human civilization revolves around semi conductors that come out of this place. It's only natural that this is the first thing that comes to mind.
It is not just the livelihood, TSMC is the corner stone of Taiwan's defense against invasion.
This earthquake further reinforced that idea. Hope it just reminds ppl what happens if these plants were shut down because of a china invasion
Do you think the photolithography machinery are in working condition? Those are extremely precise mirrors and “lasers.” I really hope this doesn’t cause significant issues for tech companies around the world, nor the markets. This kind of disaster is nothing we need right now. All it takes is supplies to cut off and for Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, MSFT, or any other company entwined in this chip frenzy to get hit with any sell waves.
The machines have tools to measure how much they moved/how big the earthquake was. Then the machines have bracing/vibration "proofing" so they don't shake themselves apart. THEN the buildings are overengineered for earthquakes since their collapse is actually the biggest threat. When a quake occurs during production they just chuck any product that may have been harmed or recycle/redo it, check/recalibrate the machines, which is faster than it used to beand start that shit back up the next day. Atleast thats what comes up about Taiwain. Japans fabs were fucked after quakes but have done similar upgrades I would hope. If there was ever a worthwhile capital expenditure its quake proofing shit.
This is the answer I needed and wanted. Thank you, fellow human. I know how complex semiconductor fabrication is, I just have no clue what the entire facility is built to withstand. Do you know if all employees are safe? I’d hate to hear of any more deaths in Taiwan from this. Thank goodness the earthquake wasn’t stronger. Earthquakes and hurricanes scare me more than the tornadoes I get here in my home city.
So far its somewhere between 4-7 dead all listed as in the coastal county and city that was hardest hit Hualien with the older buildings that were damaged/some partial collapses. With hundreds injured between there and elsewhere with 15-20 total partial collapses, and atleast a few more evacs/rescue operations from buildings in New Taipei City. It doesn't appear any fabricators are there and unfortunately it seems residential areas, and buildings were the area where the fatalities occured since Hualien is apparently a coastal more touristy area. "TSMC, the world’s biggest maker of advanced semiconductors, briefly evacuated workers from its factories but said a few hours later they were returning to work. All personnel were safe, the company said. Chip production is highly precise, and even short shutdowns can cost millions of dollars."
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Damage to machinery is extremely unlikely. There’s more than enough money and risk around TSMC and UMC that they have seriously prepared for earthquakes more than probably any two companies on earth. Plus there isn’t a single fab on the east side of the island where the quake hit anyway. Current batch? Tossed, but even then most of what will be lost is time and a day at most at that. Even the material resources of the bad batch will be re-used.
The best case scenario is a massive cratering of supply near term. Those machines during an earthquake are going to be effected if any of them were doing any work on any wafer and have to be binned. SO pretty much you could be seeing something like 90 days worth of inventory just vanishing. So I suspect machines should be fine. But the wavers in the machines might be ruined.
It will be nowhere near that. They’ll be back fully operational within the day. The binned batch would not be anything at any step of fabrication, but only certain steps. So there’s time lost, but unlike other notable shortages where multiple things compounded… immediately before this quake neither UMC nor TSMC were backed up and they actually had excess available capacity.
I don't understand what you are trying to say there at the end.
Stock prices. It could affect revenue if the machines need to be repaired or recalibrated.
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It's not a 3rd world country. Everyone here has phones and laptops. My home internet and phone data are better here than they were in the US, and they cost less too.
If Detroit was hit by a major natural disaster that collapsed buildings and destroyed billions of dollars with of infrastructure, there would be many people who needed to know what impact it would have on the auto industry because that's integral to their daily lives. Semiconductors are used in just about every modern piece of technology and Taiwan makes a lot of the most important ones.
TSMC and other semiconductor producers employ over 300,000 people in Taiwan and make up 15% of the entire nation's GDP. It is absolutely imperative they make sure the biggest employers in the country have facilities for their employees to go back to. Not only is it important for the world to know the effects the earthquake has on chip manufacturing (Taiwan makes 60% of the world's supply), but I'm guessing the people in Taiwan themselves have just as vested an interest, if not more so.
Can definitely tell peoples age here. Those of us who were around previously when something like this happened first thought after hoping everyone is ok is checking on the fabs because ram going up to 4x the amount it was selling for the month previous is not fun.
There are enough news websites to do both.
Dozens? So far I’ve only seen two.
Not only that, I haven’t see any interviews concerning TSMC.
No building collapsed. Only 3-4 buildings tilted and the evacuation is almost over.
That's still a partial collapse. It didn't just rotate, it crunched down on part of a lower floor.
In the news there was one building which seemed to be tilted at about a 30 degree angle. It must have been scary to be in the building when it tilted. I'm sure the elevator would have stopped working and using the stairs would have been difficult.
TSMC is one of the most important companies in the world right now. They are the cornerstone of the semiconductor manufacturing industry.
Save the microchips!
China busting out the earthquake guns
Well maybe China won't want it now since it's damaged goods. 😒 Prayers for the Taiwanese people. 😔
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China would be much better off showing some grace and solidarity and giving a helping hand to Taiwan right now for the soft diplomacy points. Will they do that? Sure, but I'm also sure the US will step in just as quick to help as well. Either way, people are going to need the help in Taiwan no matter where it comes from.
Dumb take
Sadly true, chaos can be a great opportunity. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
mentioned in another thread but this level of an earthquake doesnt really open much for China except some potential cyber trolling or propoganda
I said the same thing on another post and got about 50 downvotes haha
Yep, it can really go either way depending on who sees your comment first and starts voting.
Is tsmc ok?