Taiwan Earthquake

doodzed writes "A massive earthquake has just hit Taiwan. Many buildings have been toppled and over a hundred people are confirmed dead. It is hard to predict what the ramifications to the computer industry will be. Most of the world's motherboards and a lot of chips come from there. Those machines can't be reset overnight if they survived. I guess memory prices are going to go up again, but this pales in comparison to the human toll. Please pray for the victims." The story's at CNN.com - and everywhere else. Things don't look good in Taipei right now. Update:Spock_NPA writes "According to this article, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company indicated at 6:00 PM PDT that the company's building has successfully withstood the effect of the earthquake." But according to this Reuter article, analysts in Seoul still expect to see higher chip prices.

Comments

It's Y2K

[heroine]

With 16,000 people dead from earthquakes you can't help but think there's a correlation with millenial doomsday prophecies.

Don't f*ck with Mother Nature

[craw]

Many ppl here are unfamiliar with earthquakes and their implications. A "major" earthquake releases a lot more energy than the largest atomic bomb. Furthermore, the release of potential energy in the form of tall man-made structure adds to the destruction. This earthquake has been initialy measured in the mid 7's on the Ritcher scale. This is very, very big.

If one looks at earthquake prone regions one also sees a good relationship with hi-tech areas. The San Andreas Fault runs extremely close to Silicon Valley. The LA region is threatened by earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault and to other earthquakes closer to LA. The rolling hills in the LA area are the products of compressional stress that are active. Smaller earthquakes will result wrt to those big one on the San Andreas, but these will be close to high population areas.

The Pacific Northwest is now considered to be a high earthquake threat region. Earthquakes are infrequent wrt to geological time, but the big one there will be huge.

Tokyo (and the rest of Japan) is a high threat earthquake zone. The last "big one" happened about 75 yrs ago; the next big one is not that far off. For that matter, the next big one in the SF region is not that far off. Taiwan is a high threat area. Look at the mountains on Taiwan. They are the result of compressional stress that is actively building up and being released.

Turkey, Iran, northern Italy, Greece, northern India, southern China, Indonesia, parts of Mexico (Mexico City is a risk area because it sits on a bowl of jello), Peru, Chile, and many more areas are high risk areas.

The "biggest" earthquake that we have much info about in the continental US took place in New Madrid area where Missouri meets the Mississippi River. The earthquake reportedly stop pendulum clocks in Boston. Other "freak" earthquakes occured in Charleston, SC, Portugal, and Boston. While these earthquakes are generally smaller than the really big ones, the building code in so-called low risk areas are not up to acceptable earthquake building codes.

Earthquakes are something that you cannot image. I was once camping when an earthquake occured right underneath me. I was above the focal point. It scared the sh*t out of me. The earthquake was measured as a magnitude 3.

Scary MSNBC headline!

[Zico]

Not to make light of this situation (you can read my other posting in this topic for my views on it), but the alt tag beneath the main headline picture on MSNBC reads:

"As death tool climbs, resuers dig for survivors."

Death tools and redundant litigators? Why does this remind me of a George Lucas plotline?

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com