Earthquake

Hong Kong hit by 3.5 earthquake
Sep. 15, 2006 (China Knowledge)
Hong Kong was hit by an earthquake measuring 3.5 on the Richter scale last night, with tremors reaching all the way to Shenzhen and Macau, media reports said today.Fortunately, there have not been any reports of injuries or casualties and the only effects that the earthquake left on residents were a swaying of the region’s high-rise buildings, a power outage in Central, and a rude shock that took many residents out of their homes and to the streets.According to media reports, the city’s Observatory said that the earthquake took place at 7.53 p.m. Hong Kong time last night and was centered around the waters of the Dangan Islands, about 36 km south-southeast of Hong Kong.Last night’s quake was the first to hit Hong Kong since the year 2004, and although papers described the quake as a relatively mild one, it was also one of the most widely felt quakes in Hong Kong’s tremor history.The special administrative region has had a history of quakes with an average of two happening every year since the year 1979. Since that year, a total of 51 tremors measuring up to 4.0 on the Richter scale have been recorded.The strongest earthquake that the city has ever felt was on Feb. 13, 1918 when an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale hit the area and killed 1,000 people in Shantou, Guangdong province, about 300 km east-northeast of the territory.Hong Kong, with a population of about 6.8 million people, is not located squarely on a seismic belt, experts say, although it often feels tremors from surrounding areas. Most of the city’s high-rise structures are built to be tremor-proof.