TAIPEI, Taiwan (Reuters) — Seismic activity in Taipei has increased since the world’s tallest building, Taipei 101, was built, raising questions over whether the Taiwan capital has become more vulnerable to earthquakes, a geologist said on Friday.

Lin Cheng-horng, a geologist at the Institute of Earth Sciences at Taiwan’s most prestigious think tank, the Academia Sinica, said seismic activity historically had been low in the Taipei basin, home to about 7 million people.

But the city has experienced more micro-earthquakes (of magnitude 2.0-2.5 on the Richter scale) since construction began on the 508 meter (1,667 foot) skyscraper in 1997, he said.

Two earthquakes of magnitude 3.8 and 3.2 occurred directly beneath Taipei 101 in October 2004 and March 2005, he said.

“There is a distinct possibility of earthquakes being triggered by the recent construction of the world’s highest building, the imposing Taipei 101,” Lin wrote in an article published in the Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 32 on Nov. 30.

“Should seismic activity remain high or, even worse, should it significantly increase, then the possibility of earthquakes being triggered by the high-rise building will become ever so much more of a reality,” he wrote.
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Lin said Taipei 101 weighed 700,000 tons and estimated stress from vertical loading on its foundation at 4.7 bars, of which some would be transferred to the earth’s upper crust due to extremely soft sedimentary rocks beneath the Taipei basin.
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“I don’t know if it’s just coincidence or if they are related,” he said. “It’s very hard to prove this scientifically, but it’s just as hard to disprove it.”
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The $1.7 billion Taipei 101, an office tower and shopping complex, was built to withstand tremors measuring above magnitude 7.