Achi news desk-
It’s a natural disaster on the other side of the world, but aftershocks are being felt in the Maritimes.
The 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Taiwan on Wednesday morning was the country’s strongest in 25 years.
Nine people have been confirmed dead, with dozens more missing and more than 1,000 injured.
“It was … chaos,” said Wayne McNeil, who was born and raised in Glace Bay, NS, and has lived in Taiwan for 20 years
McNeil was traveling on a highway to meet his students who were returning from a graduation party when the earthquake struck.
His son was on a bus on the way to school.
“All my heart, all my feelings, were ‘Where is my son? How is he doing? Did the bus do it?’ Because he has to go over a bridge too,” McNeil told CTV News Atlantic.
“Tens of millions of people would have felt the tremor,” said Michal Kolaj, a seismologist with Natural Resources Canada.
Kolaj said rare, significant seismic activity in the Maritimes is not unknown.
“For example in 1982, there was a pair of earthquakes in Miramichi, New Brunswick, the largest of which was a magnitude 5.7, which was felt quite widely,” said Kolaj.
Another Cape Breton couple, Chris and Hollie Ivany – who live in Hong Kong – were also in Taiwan when the earthquake struck.
They confirmed to CTV News Atlantic that they were safe, although the building they were in shook violently for about two minutes.
McNeil said in the evening – or morning, back home in Cape Breton – he was able to talk to his mother and let her know he was OK.
“The message to friends and things back home is, ‘We’re fine, we’re safe.’ It was scary when it lasted, but apart from that, it’s just part of living here. It’s a country that’s to blame,” McNeil said.
Search efforts continue to try and find survivors who may be trapped in the rubble.
