Big quakes off Taiwan trigger tsunami alert

TAIPEI, Dec 26 (Reuters) Two major earthquakes struck southern Taiwan today, triggering fears of destructive waves as Asia marked the second anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

The quakes, also felt in Hong Kong and southern China, trapped six people when a building collapsed in Taiwan. No other major damage was reported and the tsunami alert was soon lifted.

''The doors of the house shook like the wind was blowing through,'' Chen Ruanfen, 21, told Reuters by telephone from Shantou in China's southern Guangdong province.

The US Geological Survey said a 7.1 magnitude quake occurred at 1756 IST in Taiwan, followed by another of magnitude 7.0 eight minutes later. The depths of both were 10 km under the ocean floor, USGS said.

Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said the first quake measured 6.7 and was centered 22.8 km southwest of the southern Hengchun Peninsula. The second measured 6.4 was more strongly felt in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second largest city.

Buildings also shook in the southeastern Chinese coastal city of Xiamen, which lies opposite Taiwan, a resident told Reuters.

''I felt a very strong shudder and didn't realise it was an earthquake until I saw people running from the building,'' said Xiamen teacher Luo Yuanling.

An official from Taiwan's National Fire Agency said about six people were trapped in Hengchun when a furniture shop collapsed.

Japan's Meteorological Agency said a tsunami of up to one metre (3.3 feet) might hit the Philippines, although Philippine authorities later said no tsunami had arrived.

Residents in low-lying areas on the northern Batanes group of islands who fled to higher ground could now return to their homes, said Renato Solidum, the head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

''No tsunami happened so the place is now safe,'' he told ABS-CBN television.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said no Pacific-wide tsunami was expected, although a local tsunami was possible.

The quakes did not cause any significant damage in China, an official at the State Seismological Bureau said.

''We've received no reports of damage, deaths or tsunamis,'' the official said. ''There's nothing to suggest that at the moment.'' ASIA MARKS 2004 TRAGEDY The quakes occurred as nations around the Indian Ocean mourned those who died the 2004 tsunami.

On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.15 quake off the far northwest coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island triggered a tsunami, triggering massive waves that killed or left missing more than 230,000 people across the region. More than 170,000 were killed or left missing in the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Taiwan two largest semiconductor manufacturers, TSMC and UMC both reported no damage from today's quakes, including at TSMC's two chip plants in the southern city of Tainan.

Taiwan television reported smoke, but no fire, at Chinese Petroleum Corp.'s (CPC) Talin oil refinery near Kaohsiung.

A CPC official said there were no reports of damage to the company's refineries in Talin and Kaohsiung, both in the south of the island.

A spokesman at Formosa Petrochemical Corp's refinery in Mailiao, in southern Taiwan, said some units were temporarily tripped off-line due to the quakes, but had since been restarted and the refinery was operating as normal.

The quakes shook building in high-rise Hong Kong but there were no reports of damage in the city, the Hong Kong Observatory said.

REUTERS SP LS RAI2144