At least seven people were killed and more than 700 injured on Wednesday in Taiwan after a massive earthquake 7.2 shook the east coast of the island in the early hours of the morningaccording to the latest official figures.

Quake, the worst recorded in Taiwan since the 7.6 magnitude earthquake of September 21, 1999 -which caused the death of 2,416 people-, occurred at 7:58 on Wednesday (23:58 GMT on Tuesday) at sea, specifically 25 kilometers southeast of the eastern county of Hualien.

According to the latest statistics from the Emergency Response Center, there were 736 injured by the earthquake, most of them located in New Taipei (174), Taipei (143) and Hualien County (132), and 77 people remain trapped or stranded.

The earthquake and its successive aftershocks caused considerable material damage, especially in the Hualien area, where numerous buildings and infrastructure have been affected. and at least two housing blocks are partially collapsed, and has also caused the closure of several roads.

The number of incidents related to the disaster has risen to 1,103, with 690 cases classified as “other types of events”, followed by 189 civil infrastructure incidents and 125 building damage incidents.

According to the estimates of the park authorities, at less 654 peopleincluding tourists and employees, were in Taroko at the time of the earthquake and several hundred entered the park later, raising the number of stranded people to close to a thousand.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has asked the population to stay calm and take extreme precautions, since new aftershocks of between 6.5 and 7 degrees of the earthquake are likely to occur in the coming days. The president, who visited the Disaster Response Center together with the Prime Minister, Chen Chien-jen, after the event, indicated that the Executive has given orders to provide the necessary assistance and work with local governments in emergency efforts.

The tremor could also be felt andn the Japanese islands of Okinawa with a force of four degrees, which initially caused the Japanese authorities to issue an alert for tsunami that has already been removed, according to the Kyodo News news agency. For its part, the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) had also warned about a possible tsunami, which it has already withdrawn.