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Taiwan — Natural Disaster Report

Asia · Live status: Low (1 active event)

Alerts for Taiwan

Current situation: 1 natural disaster event is currently monitored in Taiwan, with a worst severity of Minor. Details, sources and timestamps are listed below.

Taiwan sits on the boundary between the Philippine Sea and Eurasian plates and is both highly seismic and directly in the Northwest Pacific typhoon track. The 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake killed more than 2,400 people and drove major upgrades to building codes and early warning. Typhoons regularly bring extreme rainfall to steep mountain terrain — Typhoon Morakot in 2009 delivered over 2,000 millimetres of rain in a few days and triggered the Xiaolin landslide, which buried a village. That combination of earthquakes loosening slopes and typhoons saturating them makes landslides and debris flows a persistent hazard. Taiwan now operates one of the fastest earthquake early warning systems in the world.

Live map — Taiwan

Icon = what happened · ring colour = how serious: Extreme Severe Moderate Minor

Loading live data… · Marker positions are approximate; severity is labelled in each popup. Sources: USGS, GDACS, NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC.

Active alerts & recent events

M4.3 Earthquake — 30 km S of Yilan, Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan active via USGS 2 days ago M4.1 Earthquake — Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan monitoring via EMSC 6 days ago Active Fire Zone — 29 satellite detections (24h) Moderate Wildfire Taiwan monitoring via FIRMS Oct 12, 2026 M5.3 Earthquake — Southeast Of Ryukyu Islands Moderate Earthquake Taiwan monitoring via EMSC Oct 11, 2026 M4.5 Earthquake — Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Oct 6, 2026 M4.7 Earthquake — Northeast Of Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Oct 5, 2026 M4.6 Earthquake — Taiwan Region Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 30, 2026 M5.6 Earthquake — Taiwan Region Moderate Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 30, 2026 M4.6 Earthquake — Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 28, 2026 M4.2 Earthquake — Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 27, 2026 M4.2 Earthquake — Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 21, 2026 M4.7 Earthquake — Northeast Of Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 15, 2026 M4.3 Earthquake — Northeast Of Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 15, 2026 M4.6 Earthquake — Taiwan Region Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 13, 2026 M4.2 Earthquake — Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 13, 2026 M4.2 Earthquake — Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 11, 2026 M4.5 Earthquake — Taiwan Region Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via EMSC Sep 6, 2026 M4.3 Earthquake — 116 km NE of Hengchun, Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via USGS Sep 4, 2026 M4.4 Earthquake — 77 km SE of Hengchun, Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via USGS Sep 2, 2026 M4.4 Earthquake — 39 km W of Hengchun, Taiwan Minor Earthquake Taiwan closed via USGS Aug 28, 2026

Latest earthquakes

Near a particular city? Earthquake history near a place · disasters reported near a place · compare Taiwan's earthquake record with another country.

By hazard in Taiwan

Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.

Risk profile

Typhoons June-October, peaking August-September. Earthquakes year-round. Landslides and debris flows during typhoons, worsened in areas destabilised by prior earthquakes. Flooding in western lowlands during the plum rain season, May-June.

Official emergency authorities

Disaster displacement in Taiwan

Latest year with data · 2025

39,044 internal displacements

Largest single event: 9,144 from storm, beginning 16 September 2025.

A displacement is a movement, not a person: somebody forced from home more than once in a year is counted more than once. These are movements caused by disasters only — displacement caused by conflict is counted separately and is not included here.

Hazard Displacements in 2025
Storm 32,224
Flood 5,947
Mass Movement 873
YearDisplacements
2025 39,044
2024 39,613

Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Global Internal Displacement Database. IDMC publishes annually, so the latest year here is the latest they have finalised — not the current one.

What this site sees in Taiwan

Source Events here, last 12 months What it will not tell you
European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre 23 Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard.
US Geological Survey 4 Global for earthquakes above roughly M4.5, and denser where there are more seismometers. It publishes nothing about any other hazard.
NASA FIRMS 1 Global, but it sees only what the satellite saw on its pass, and thick cloud hides fire. A quiet day here is not evidence that nothing burned.
NASA EONET 1 Global and curated rather than automatic, so it is slower than the raw feeds and carries far fewer events.
GDACS (European Commission / United Nations) none Global, but deliberately selective: it alerts on disasters likely to need INTERNATIONAL response. Serious local flooding that a national agency handles alone will not appear here.
WMO Alert Hub (national weather services) none Each warning comes from one country own alerting authority, so the scale is that agency scale and is not comparable between countries. Many agencies publish no coordinates, and those warnings are placed at the centre of the country rather than where the weather is - the area name is the real answer.
MeteoAlarm (EUMETNET) none Europe only. It publishes no coordinates at all, so every warning here is placed at the centre of its country and the area name is the only reliable indication of where it applies.
NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers none These two centres warn for the US and Canadian coasts and for the Pacific and Caribbean basins. The Indian Ocean and Mediterranean have their own warning centres, which are not read here. Their routine information statements - the ones that say there is NO tsunami danger - are deliberately not imported, so an empty tsunami list means no threat was issued, not that nothing was checked.
NOAA National Hurricane Center none The Atlantic and the eastern and central Pacific only. No typhoon in the western Pacific and no cyclone in the Indian Ocean or the southern hemisphere appears here; those come from GDACS and from national services.
ReliefWeb (UN OCHA) none Global, but it reports on humanitarian RESPONSE. It arrives days after an event rather than during it, and never functions as a warning.

Not applicable here: US National Weather Service — Covers the United States only. It publishes nothing about any other country, so its absence from a country page is not an outage. ; USGS Volcano Hazards Program — United States volcanoes only - Alaska, Hawaii, the Cascades, Yellowstone, California and the Northern Mariana Islands. It says nothing about Indonesia, Iceland, Italy or anywhere else, so its silence about a foreign eruption is not a judgement about that eruption.

Frequently asked questions

What natural disasters are currently active in Taiwan?

There are currently 1 monitored natural disaster events in Taiwan. The overall risk status is Low. See the live list on this page for details and sources.

What natural hazards does Taiwan face?

Taiwan sits on the boundary between the Philippine Sea and Eurasian plates and is both highly seismic and directly in the Northwest Pacific typhoon track. The 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake killed more than 2,400 people and drove major upgrades to building codes and early warning.

When is the main natural disaster season in Taiwan?

Typhoons June-October, peaking August-September. Earthquakes year-round. Landslides and debris flows during typhoons, worsened in areas destabilised by prior earthquakes. Flooding in western lowlands during the plum rain season, May-June. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.

Which official agency issues disaster warnings in Taiwan?

Official warnings for Taiwan are issued by Central Weather Administration, Taiwan. The link is on this page. This site aggregates and reports; it does not issue warnings, and in an emergency the national agency is the authority.

Where does this disaster data for Taiwan come from?

Data is aggregated from official sources including USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, ReliefWeb and national agencies. Every event links to its original source, and update times are shown on each record.

Data sources: USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC, ReliefWeb (UN OCHA). See data sources & attribution and methodology. This page does not replace official emergency guidance.