The island was shaken with a magnitude of 7.3, followed by a long series of tremors, something Taiwanese had not seen in a quarter of a century.
Photo: REUTERS
Images of the earthquake in Taiwan were broadcast in the media: jets of water fell from the roof of a skyscraper, a swimming pool was broken. The buildings lean on their sides, under the roof of the television studio, like leaves in the wind, the lamps vibrate. The island was shaken with a magnitude of 7.3, followed by a long series of tremors, something Taiwanese had not seen in a quarter of a century. According to the island’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, nine people were killed and at least a thousand injured.
Considering that “vital” microchips are manufactured in Taiwan, the consequences for the IT sector will be noticeable. KP.RU asked experts how the earthquake would affect the industry.
THE TRAGEDY OF MRS. KAHN
The most affected was a group of tourists who, at the time of the crashes, were on the Dekalun Mountain hiking route, famous for its beautiful views. Of the nine dead, three lost their lives there, when rock fragments flew towards them…
The inhabitants described the moment of the emergency: “It all started with a slight tremor, then there was a loud “splash”: the whole house vibrated. Phones flew off the nightstands. I have never seen anything like this,” Liu, 18, told local reporters.
“After the first scare, we immediately ran away. At school we did evacuation drills all the time. “All the neighbors who were on the floor quickly jumped up,” Wang explained. By the way, local schoolchildren wear “disaster hoods” during earthquakes: they protect their heads from possible injuries and can also be used as sleeping pillows.
“The phone line was overloaded and I could only reach my parents after half an hour,” Bai complains.
The island is discussing the tragedy of the kind Mrs. Kang from Hualien City. She ran away, but when the aftershocks died down, she decided to return to the seventh-floor apartment in search of the cat. The earth shook with renewed vigor and the building collapsed, burying both the woman and her cat.
Meanwhile, at the Hualien columbarium they don’t know what to do: many urns with the ashes have been broken. How can family members remember their dead now?
CAN SHOCKS OCCUR AGAIN?
The head of the seismic risk laboratory of the Institute of Earth Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexei Zavyalov, in conversation with KP.RU called the Taiwan earthquake a rare event: cataclysms with a magnitude above 8 occur on the planet approximately once a year, similar to that of Taiwan: 17-18 times, but here it must be taken into account that not all of them affect densely populated areas.
Predicting something like this even in 2024 is not so easy. “The Earth’s crust, in which tectonic stress builds up, occasionally finds a “release” in the form of earthquakes. But not a single professional seismologist in the world can yet confidently predict the peak of this “discharge”, comments the scientist. The fact that Taiwan is located in a seismic zone implies, of course, the repetition of tremors. But to understand exactly when it is necessary to study the earth’s crust at great depths, which is very difficult: the epicenter of the current earthquake was one and a half kilometers under water.
MICROCHIPS IN THE RISK AREA
Taiwan is the world’s largest producer of microchips, without which modern electronics, from phones to servers to automobiles, would not exist. The main company is TSMC, it has the most advanced technologies. GPUs for Artificial Intelligence systems are manufactured in Taiwan. Recently, for example, Nvidia introduced ultra-powerful Blackwell superchips, for which the largest corporations lined up.
KP.RU asked experts: what will happen if a strong earthquake destroys chip factories? And how did the current cataclysm affect production, when all employees had to be evacuated from the workshops?
Ilya Korshunov, General Director of KP-IT LLC, IT solutions provider:
– Most likely, the market will realize the consequences in the coming days, when it becomes clear which factories in Taiwan are operational and which need to be restored. After the devastating earthquake of 1999, most manufacturers took this lesson into account: modern production is quite resistant to earthquakes.
But disruptions to power supply and logistics will certainly affect production volumes, even if briefly. And we must not forget that stock prices can be affected by panic without precise reasons, simply the fact of the cataclysm is enough. So, most likely, we will see a slight increase in prices for products from TSMC factories, whose largest customers are Apple, ARM, AMD, Marvel, MediaTek and Nvidia.
But if the factories stop for a month, the market will go crazy; “with our finger in the sky” we can predict a price increase of 50% or more. But this is a very unlikely scenario.
Ksenia Plotnikova, information security specialist at FKU “TsOKR”:
– The entire digital world is now looking at Taiwan, because it is a global IT factory. In addition to TSMC, UMC manufactures semiconductors on the island. Manufacturers Acer, Asus, Gigabyte and many others also have their headquarters there.
The TSMC plant has been operating on the island for 37 years and production is automated down to the smallest detail. The company produces an average of 150 thousand drivers per month. Even a temporary factory failure will significantly reduce supply.
As a result of the earthquake, most products will be rejected. The slightest vibrations disturb the operation of high-precision equipment. TSMC representatives have already claimed that the cataclysm caused damage to thousands of finished wafers. Information is already circulating in the media that 6 hours of downtime will cost the company about $60 million.
In the near future, the market will surely expect an increase in production times, deliveries and prices.
