Taiwan earthquake: Japanese tsunami warning leaves 1,100 Hong Kong cruise-goers stuck at sea for 3 hours
- Captain of cruise ship heading to Ishigaki Island forced to wait in deep ocean for several hours after Taiwan quake triggered tsunami warning in Japan
- Wednesday’s earthquake in Taiwan led to at least nine deaths and nearly 1,000 people being injured, with 34 Hongkongers reaching out to city’s immigration authorities
EGL Tours executive director Steve Huen Kwok-chuen said on Thursday that a cruise carrying 1,100 city residents was scheduled to stop at the Okinawa prefecture’s Ishigaki Island at 11am on Wednesday, but waited for three hours before docking.
“Japanese authorities issued a tsunami warning for Okinawa after the earthquake, so the captain steered the cruise towards the deep ocean, which is safer,” he told a radio programme.
“The cruise docked at around 2pm after the tsunami warning was cancelled, and our guests could carry on with their itinerary.”
The tour operator said the passengers were sailing on the Resort World One cruise ship.
Huen said the vessel was scheduled to return to Hong Kong on Friday morning and that all the guests were safe.
Leung Wing-mo, a former assistant director at the Hong Kong Observatory, said it was safer for cruise ships to stay in the open sea rather than a harbour.
“A tsunami wave may have been one metre or [less] in the deep ocean, [but] it may grow into a huge wave of over 10 metres when it sweeps [to] shore,” he explained.
Leung said although a tsunami may move fast out at sea, its speed drops to about 50km/h (31mph) as it enters the shallow waters of coastlines or harbours.
“What this means is that the tsunami waves become compressed near the coast, and the wave energy is concentrated in a much smaller space, thereby increasing their heights considerably,” he said.
Taiwan was struck by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake on Wednesday, sparking tsunami warnings and resulting in at least nine deaths, as well as injuries to nearly 1,000 people.
Hong Kong’s Immigration Department said 34 city residents in Taiwan had contacted it for help after the quake as of 8pm on Thursday.
Those who had contacted the department were in safe locations, officials added.
The department said it would work with the city’s Travel Industry Authority and Travel Industry Council to provide help, while keeping in contact with affected travellers.
Huen said 300 Hongkongers were taking part in 11 tours spanning Taiwan’s Taipei, Taichung and Tainan with the company, but none of the trips involved Hualien – the site of the quake.
Transport services had resumed quickly after the earthquake and none of the tour group’s flights were affected as they had mainly departed from airports in Taipei and Kaohsiung, he added.
Huen said there were six coming tour groups scheduled for this month and May that included Hualien county in their itineraries, with the earliest leaving Hong Kong on April 16.
Taiwan quake: Taipei rebuffs aid offer from mainland China amid deadly disaster
“Authorities have said they will reopen the railway to Hualien in one direction, so we are monitoring the situation and working with local partners to decide whether the tour group will set out as scheduled before informing our customers,” he said.
The Hong Kong Observatory also recorded a sea-level anomaly of about 7cm (2.8 inches) near Shek Pik at around 1pm on Wednesday, saying it was likely to be the result of a subsided tsunami triggered by the quake.
