TAIPEI, Nov 9 (AFP) - Taiwan's seismology centre said Tuesday that an earthquake overnight was far stronger than first thought and measured 6.7 on the Richter scale.
The centre had originally given the quake as measuring 5.7 on the open-ended scale, but said a computer glitch had caused a false reading. There were no reports of any casualties or damage from the tremor.
"It was the first time our automatic computer system misjudged the magnitude of an earthquake," said an analyst at the seismology centre.
He suspected that a series of preceding smaller quakes might have interfered with the computer system.
According to the revised readings, the tremor struck at 11:54 pm (1554 GMT) with its epicenter located around 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of the northeastern coastal county of Hualien, 10 kilometres under the seabed.
In the capital Taipei, buildings swayed for more than one minute.
Some residents in Ilan city, also along the northeastern coast, fled their homes after being awoken by the strong tremor, TVBS cable news network said, adding that the quake also triggered rock falls on to a highway.
An undersea quake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale rocked the island on October 15 but caused no casualties or damage.
It was the largest to hit quake-prone Taiwan since the island's worst tremor, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck in September 1999 leaving some 2,400 people dead.
11/09/2004 02:53 GMT - AFP