Earthquake hits Taiwan, no initial reports of damage

TAIPEI

Wed Mar 3, 2010 7:44pm EST

TAIPEI (Reuters) - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 shook Taiwan on Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, officials said.

Taiwan uses the Richter scale to measure earthquake intensity. The U.S. Geological Survey put the quake's magnitude at 6.5.

The epicenter of the quake, which struck at 8:18 am (0018 GMT), was around the southern city of Kaohsiung at a depth of 5 km, the Central Weather Bureau said.

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

One of Taiwan'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.

(Reporting by Jonathan Standing; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)

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