Trip - Taiwan - Day 3 - 921 Earthquake Museum

Good morning Blog,

Some of them felt that we should spend some time out from Taipei hence we decided to visit Taichung today.

This was 7.30am, usually this time in Singapore, it won't be that bright.

We went for a simple breakfast and set off to get to the high-speed train (there were some hiccups like providing an expired passport detail from the team and I was blind to identify the problem)...

Well... Thank goodness, I got a percentage of refund and purchased the tickets with the correct passport detail. 

Comfortable High-Speed Rail took an hour from Taipei to Taichung. Taiwan is larger than Singapore!

(Credit BP) We got comfortable seat and could catch some Sleep.

Random city - Taiwan is just too big and has a lot to explore!

With a blink of my eyes, we arrived Taichung. The reason why we came here is because... Our group travelled for food, they heard there is a famous vegetarian restaurant - 養素庭回転火車蔬食火鍋 (buffet hotpot style) but because it is so popular, we need to make reservations so we needed to go elsewhere and returned for dinner.

So we went to Yizhong street for a little shopping.

The great thing here was... We found smelly tofu! 😋

(Credit WC) just a weirdo stood in the middle of the street annoyed the visitors here

They decided to travel to a place which I wished to go but... It took an hour of a bus to get that destination as titled.

Transportation in Taiwan is really convenient and easy, especially with the help of Google.

Even though... I felt uneasy... Because we might be rushing in that place... Oh well... Taichung doesn't have any other interesting places to keep everyone hyped. Hope they won't complain that the place isn't great...

We had arrived and we needed to walk in a bit.

I found some ruins along the way.

My urbex exploration addiction started to kick in.

What a nice place to visit :3

Wanted to enter but the rest of them discouraged me.

What made me wonder... Why were there ruins around, not just one or two, but it's a whole stretch like the whole town.

Approaching.

From outside, we could see the school ruin already, time to return. Just kidding. Before we entered the museum, there are five separate portals to inform the visitors, what is inside the museum.

One of them is Chelongpu Fault Preservation Hall: The Chelongpu Fault Preservation Hall has many earthquake scenes involving the fault line of an Earthquake.

Earthquake Engineering Hall: It is an exhibition area that shows research on Earthquake Engineering, and how to be safe in modern buildings to reduce the effects of earthquakes; like understanding how earthquakes and a building is constructed.

Disaster Prevention Hall & Collapsed South Classroom Building: It was closed so we didn't visit that section.

Collapsed North Classroom Building: The one which we passed by. They preserved the ruin and left it untouched. Let us understand how inferior we are in front of Mother Nature.

Welcome to 921 Earthquake Museum of Taiwan.

Based on the Chinese words, they made it into a museum for educational purposes.

A map of the museum

From entrance, we passed by a swimming pool

It seemed like this pool is still alright.

Hmmm... what is in the centre...

Ah! 921. What is 921 stands for? On September 21, 1999, Taiwan had one of its worst disasters - a 7.3 - magnitude earthquake.

This first ruin was to show us how whatever solid ground is just a biscuit to Mother Nature.

I won't comment much but allow the pictures of the ruin to sink into our minds... Just how small and fragile we are.

Thank goodness, when the quake happened, it was at night. I can't imagine if it happened during the day... but I know there is nothing great about it too... as other places were not spared...

The tremendous vibration can break things. I always say this... 無形控制有型. In translation: intangible in control over tangible/non-physical in control over physical/invisible in control over visible/immaterial in control over immaterial. Like the hurricane (non-physical) can affect the physical etc etc

The main entrance of the school front is still standing strong after the quakes.

It showed there is a lot of positive energy like the four cardinal values 禮義廉恥 lǐ yì lián chǐ. Copied from wiktionary. The first is propriety, the second is righteousness, the third is integrity, and the fourth is a sense of shame. Propriety consists in not overstepping the bounds of proper restraint. Righteousness consists in not pushing oneself forward [at the expense of others]. Integrity consists in not concealing one's faults. Having a sense of shame consists in not following those who go awry.

They build an additional shelter to preserve this ruin from further damage by rain.

From still feel the quakes break this concrete like biscuits or flakes.

An X-formation to hold the ruins structure together. I wondered what factor made them determine which or where required such enforcement? Unprofessional and zero knowledge, can only imagine because of the weight distribution might have higher risks of further falling apart.

The before and after images can easily cause trauma to the survivors... Have to register that their memories got messed up by uncontrollable and unpredictable forces.

The force of nature that bends

The vibrations from the quakes will vibrate/shake within the molecular level.

Due to the limited of time spent here, I can't cover the theatre part, and we can only explore the Earthquake Experience Theatre.

Gallery of the Earthquake scene during...

21st Sep 1999. It seemed like there is a limited slot for anyone to visit the Earthquake stimulation threader so we took a number and timing and will be back again.

Outside the exhibition, there are some displays which don't relate to the earthquake.

Some explanation on the cause of the destruction is due to the direction of the school built? Hmm, which direction? Kind of confusing.

The school toppled down like sandwiches.

From the look of the destruction 

It seemed like it was shaken sideway.

If forward shaking, the school will collapse top down.

Some additional information about the destruction.

What a big tremors going on here.

I just stood there for a while, imagining and replaying the scenes of how it will happen.

We moved on to another exhibition where...

...they show the failure and prevention towards Earthquakes.

I don't have enough time to have...

...a good look and understanding of this presentation because of time constraints.

I love this experiment so much to understand how building structure was built and balancing can reduce the destruction of the building.

Some useful videos allow me to understand how a building structure and study to live with Earthquakes.

Here is one interesting experiment to demo how the type of soil and building interacted.

After shaking, the experiment is trying to explain to us, the direction of the building structure's face (depending on the direction of the earthquake waves).

How Earthquakes are formed, is due to two tectonic plates spreading, slipping, or colliding.

Here are good examples to enforce the building structure than just steel frame.

Oooo it's time to visit the Earthquake Experience Theatre. I saw some young kids cried so loud after the experience.

I wondered how the quake stimulation works

Oooo, a large room with projections

Everyone sat down and watched a speech from two professionals on how Earthquake formed and things to take note. Then it's time to experience how 7+ Earthquake is.

errr... I am sorry... What was that, just now? I could feel the vibration from the ground and... Just a light vibration like... A big machine operating. I thought it will be a shaky experience but it was quite underwhelming... Hahaha.

Here was a video record I did and it was not very clear especially in the dark room.

Anyway, we couldn't stay in the museum too long, as we needed to travel an hour plus to our dinner place; so we took a cab. Along the way there, I saw the driver seemed chatty, to jump out my introvert shell, I started my interview session by asking him about 921 Earthquake. The driver shared with us that he was a youth when it happened, and luckily, his parents were safe but his relatives were that lucky... he was dismayed whatever in front of him; his house, his belonging and the crying around him... He could not return to scavenge whatever because the tremors will still return. When the break of the dawn, the survivors including him will try to remove the debris and save whoever they can find. Most of them slept and gather under a firm building or school hall or open space, while the army will give up simple meals, tents and toiletry, and helping out in registration. Some factories also tried to use big trencher or whatever machine they can use to remove the debris... The youngers survivors would form sentry guards to prevent anyone from stealing. On top of that, government only paid peanut to the people who lost their houses. The whole sharing was that this impacted him a lot - he was feeling hopeless and lost.

It gave me a while to digest the whole thing, I might not able to fully understand/experience the actual disaster... I can only be thankful that we are safe (for now) All I learned that... Everything in this world are connected. Earth's one small movement can have a great aftermath to things in a smaller scale. We have to be cautious over our actions, because it will have ripple effects to others unknowingly.

Overall, 921 Earthquake Museum was an interesting trip and I was glad to have visited there and hope to come back again to listen to the staff explaining.

Jeff