Taiwanese TV Anchors’ Reactions Captured Live As Newscasts Are Interrupted By 7.4 Earthquake

Tom Tapp
·2 min read
23

An anchor for Taiwan’s iNews was live on air relaying a message from the country’s earthquake early warning system when the actual 7.4 temblor hit Tuesday.

Video shows the newscaster did not even pause as she began to report on what would later be recognized as the island’s biggest shake in decades. The camera cut to wildly swinging light cans in the studio rafters and then back down to the intrepid anchor who, while visibly rocked by the shaking, did not break eye contact. Her only concession to the jolt was to reach back with one hand and brace herself against the video screen behind her. Watch below.

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Another local anchor at SET News decided not to brace herself at all, doing an admirable job of keeping her feet beneath her — in heels, no less — as the shaking began.

Over at another outlet, the news presenter was fortunate to be seated, but the station’s green screen graphics were a mess with the shaking.

According to the New York Times, nine people were killed by the quake and hundreds were injured.

The Taiwanese anchors’ reactions were a sharp contrast to those in another seismically active media market: Los Angeles.

In 2019, KCAL9 news anchors Juan Fernandez and Sara Donchey were live on air when a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck about 100 miles north of L.A. Their reaction? Duck and cover.

Of course, the most famous local in-studio earthquake moment was the reaction of Kent Shockneck, who was hosting NBC4’s Today in L.A. when the 5.9-magnitude Whittier Narrows earthquake hit in 1987.

As studio lighting crashed about him, a nervous-looking Shockneck said, “I’m going to get under this desk, I apologize for the theatrics.”

It was a maneuver the rattled anchor would repeat again during an aftershock and earned him the nickname “Kent Shockwave.’

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