Quake shakes Taiwan, no reports of damage

Taipei: An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 shook Taiwan on Wednesday but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, the Central Weather Bureau said on its website.

The epicentre of the quake, which struck at 8:21 a.m. (0021 GMT), was in the east side of Hualien at a depth of 18 km (11 miles), the bureau said. Taiwan uses the Richter scale to measure earthquakes.

Earthquakes occur frequently in Taiwan, which lies on a seismically active stretch of the Pacific basin.

One of the island`s worst-recorded quakes occurred in September 1999. Measuring 7.6, it killed more than 2,400 people and destroyed or damaged 50,000 buildings.