9-21 Earthquake Museum

    

   - darkometer rating: 8 -

    

Earthquakes and the damage they cause feature only rarely in dark tourism. Taiwan offers an exception. In fact the 9-21 Earthquake Museum of Taiwan is pretty much unique in the world, as it features the collapsed ruins of a school devastated by the 1999 earthquake. This is probably the most stunning illustration that you’ll ever see of the destructive forces Mother Nature can conjure up (in this category). It also demonstrates how important earthquake-resistant construction is, as the building materials/techniques used in this school were evidently not up to the task. The associated exhibitions go into quite some detail about all this. A similarly dramatic temple ruin in the area was tagged on to the tour that I went on by car, which then finished at another museum that focuses on the geology of earthquakes in general. That day was one of the highlights of my 2023/2024 Taiwan trip! 

More background info: Like the 2-28 Museum in Taipei, this place also uses a date abbreviation in the American format. In this case it refers to the devastating earthquake of 21 September 1999. That started at 1.47 a.m., so in the middle of the night, bringing a rough awakening to hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese people especially in the Taichung region. The epicentre was some five miles (8 km) below the Jiji township, also spelled Chi-Chi, which is why the event is also referred to by that name: “Chi-Chi Earthquake”.

  

  

In just 30 seconds a surface rupture some 60 miles (100 km) long formed along the fault line. The land along one side of this line was raised by up to 9m (30ft). It also damaged dams, which in turn disrupted the water supply for tens of thousands of people.

  

On the other hand, the devastation also heightened awareness of the danger and the importance to adapt, especially as far as the construction sector was concerned. The earthquake proved the hard way that many buildings, and in particular schools, were constructed using inadequate techniques and materials too weak to withstand quakes better. Fortunately the earthquake hit in the middle of the night, so no pupils were present in the many affected schools – otherwise the death toll amongst the young could have been catastrophically higher.

  

Earthquakes are a sort of natural disaster (although substandard construction also makes it partially a human-made disaster) that are not often commemorated in any significant commodified fashion. But Taiwan is an exception here:

  

The 9-21 Earthquake Museum was created around the ruins of what used to be Guangfu Junior High School located to the south-east of Taichung City. It stood directly on the fault line and was largely destroyed in the 9-21 quake.

  

The adjacent museum has exhibitions about earthquakes in general and the 9-21 tragedy in particular. In most cases of earthquakes, the damage gets repaired or cleared away and people try to move on. Having such a dramatic ruin preserved to provide a visually impressive idea of the physical forces involved in such events is highly unusual (but see also Quake City Christchurch). So this is an almost unique and extremely significant dark destination – and possibly the visually most stunning one in the whole of Taiwan.

  

There are also a couple more ruins of buildings that collapsed in the 1999 earthquake that have been preserved, in particular the Jiji Wuchang Temple (see below). Moreover there is a branch of Taichung’s Museum of Natural Science (see below) that focuses on the topic of earthquakes and includes an excavation site where you can see the geological fault in the land.

  

Travelling through severely earthquake-prone countries such as Taiwan always comes with a little uneasy feeling – what if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? (I’ve had such feelings before e.g. in Japan, Turkey and Chile.) In one of the hotels I stayed at in Taipei, the information material in the room included a leaflet on the correct behaviour in the event of an earthquake. It was illuminating, but only enhanced that somewhat uneasy feeling.

  

I’ve felt minor earthquakes even here at home in Vienna, when you can experience a certain wobbly shake and glasses and crockery rattle about and may fall over, but nothing of a force like the 9-21 earthquake. Taiwan experiences minor quakes hundreds of times a year, but it is roughly every 25 years that a big one comes along.

  

So when I travelled to Taiwan in late 2023/early 2024 it was just under twenty-four and a half years since the 1999 quake. The next one would surely be due soon. And so it happened: just a few months after my return, the region around Hualien on the east side of Taiwan was hit by another earthquake of nearly the same magnitude on 3 April. It caused far less damage and resulted in far fewer casualties than the one in 1999, though, partly because the area is less densely populated than other parts of Taiwan, but probably also because of the lessons learned regarding earthquake-resistant construction.

  

  

What there is to see: quite a lot. I was fortunate enough to be taken around these earthquake sites in the Taichung area by an American tour guide who has lived and worked in Taiwan for decades and who had reached out to me regarding a possible collaboration. So as a sort of pilot project she offered to take my wife and myself on a tour by car to three of the main earthquake-related locations in the Taichung region (where she is based).

  

The first and most significant port of call on this tour was at the 9-21 Earthquake Museum of Taiwan:

  

After we had arrived and parked the car, our guide, who also teaches tourism in the region, checked in with the reception and emerged with a local museum employee who she had taught and with whom she had arranged an introductory guided tour in English for us. The poor woman was very nervous, because to her it felt like an exam having to give us the tour for real. But in the end she managed to compose herself sufficiently and went through the tour with grace, spoke decent English and basically did exactly the job that was expected of her. But we sensed her relief when it was all over ;-)

  

The tour concentrated on the open-air parts of the site. It began at the running tracks of the school’s sports field. You can clearly see the fault-line rupture that ran right through the field, with the running tracks folded up by the rupture a couple of metres on the one side, as if they’d been made of paper.

  

But even more dramatic is the school ruin as such, which forms the centrepiece of the museum. At a side building, kept upright by steel supports, you can clearly see how concrete columns were moved to one side and totally bent by the force of the quake. On the ground floor of the south school building you can see an ex-classroom now equipped with some measuring technology but otherwise largely bare except for a blackboard on a wall and motionless ceiling fans … Open-air information panels point out the various construction faults of the reinforced concrete columns and other such aspects.

  

The main school building collapsed in such a way that parts of the main wing were totally “pancaked”, while a middle section was half intact above the ground floor. This all illustrates that it is indeed not a good idea to be on the ground floor of a building in an earthquake, as it’s the most likely part to collapse completely. A panel showed before-and-after photos of the main school building that further illustrate the scale of the devastation.

  

You can look around the semi-collapsed concrete structures, now protected from the elements by a roof on stilts. Stairs and raised walkways also allow you a view in from above. Here and there you can still make out bits of school furniture or old tube television sets.

  

At the end of the semi-collapsed classroom block you can see an exposed and tilted bathroom section with sets of squat loos you wouldn’t be able to squat over any more. Moving around the building to the north-western corner of the compound there’s a stretch of railway bent into a snaking S-line by the earthquake – except this is actually a replica, but a photo on one of the information panels showed the real thing. On the north side of the main school building is the former main entrance. Outside are the toppled remnants of the gate to the whole compound and the mangled former sign above it.

  

It was here that we parted company with our local museum guide and then proceeded to see the rest of the site with our American guide. First we went to the largest of the purpose-built museum edifices. This one contained a comprehensive image gallery.

  

There are several large blow-ups of photos of residential high-rise buildings that collapsed in the quake as well as of damaged dams and broken roads, and suchlike. One set of photos showed teams from various other countries that came to Taiwan to assist in the search-and-rescue operations in the wake of the disaster.

  

Also featured are recreations of the internal damage to the buildings. All this is complemented by informative text-and-image panels (also in English) that outline the geological and physical aspects involved. A special feature is also a machine that demonstrates the different shake modes of earthquakes. The so-called “Earthquake Experience Theatre”, however, was out of action at the time of our visit.

  

After this we proceeded to a separate exhibition building, the so-called “Earthquake Engineering Hall”, south of and parallel to the collapsed main school building. In this airy hall are displays of rescue workers’ equipment and clothing as well as various panels and screens about different aspects of how to make buildings earthquake-resistant. Examples are a nuclear power station or the iconic “101” skyscraper in Taipei, at over 500m the tallest in the country and featuring some of the most modern and efficient construction and damper technology. Text-and-image panels provide plenty of information and additional QR codes allow access to even more in-depth info online.

  

Artefacts include basic, insufficient versus more elaborate and stable reinforcing of concrete columns. Some installations illustrate how the contents of homes can also be made more earthquake-resistant. For me the most impressive element was an experimental station where you could test the effects of so-called “soil liquefaction”, perhaps the scariest and most otherworldly aspect of seismic activity, namely when the frequency of the vibrating earth means that the soil gets destabilized to such an extent that it temporarily behaves almost like quicksand or a thick liquid. I remember images from Christchurch, New Zealand, that showed cars semi-protruding from/semi-buried in soil after it had re-solidified. The most common effect of liquefaction, however, is the destabilization of buildings, causing the typical tilted blocks you often see in post-earthquake imagery.

  

After this we briefly moved on to the “Disaster Prevention Hall”, but this proved to be aimed primarily at young children, so we didn’t linger long. Likewise we gave the “Leisure and Creativity Corner” in a separate building a miss.

  

Behind the latter you can see the school’s outdoor swimming pool, formerly part of its sports facilities, but now waterless and with a simple sculpture forming the figures 9-2-1, if viewed from the correct angle, in the centre of the dry ex-pool. I didn’t realize it at the time but we also missed the “Reconstruction Records Hall”, but I guess that from a dark-tourism perspective this is probably the most missable aspect.

  

  

We then drove off by car to get to another earthquake ruin that apparently is quite famous locally and a much photographed sight. This is the Jiji Wuchang Temple. There’s a newly constructed active temple there now, but the predecessor that so photogenically collapsed in the 9-21 earthquake has been preserved in its devastated form. There isn’t much commodification here, just the dark aesthetics of the collapsed religious edifice to be viewed from different angles. It’s quite a touristy sight, though, as evidenced by the cluster of souvenir shops, arts-and-crafts stalls and snack shops nearby.

  

Finally, we also visited the Chelongpu Fault Preservation Park even further south. This is centred around a geological excavation site – a trench dug to study the geological nature of a part of the fault line that had caused the 9-21 earthquake (and several others in preceding centuries and millennia). A dome structure was constructed above the excavation site to protect it from the elements and normally access to this dome would be part of a visit to this site. But for some unexplained reason this part was closed at the time of our visit. The adjacent museum, however, was open. The exhibition inside presents lots of geological details about the 9-21 earthquake and the whole geology and physics of earthquakes in general as well as the history of earthquake research and plate tectonic theory. It’s quite specific and technical at times, but “watered down” sufficiently to be digestible by lay people too. Still, a keen interest in the science behind earthquakes helps, otherwise you may find it all a bit dull.

  

All in all, I found this day trip themed around the 9-21 earthquake a highlight of my trip to Taiwan in 2023/24. The school ruins in particular are an especially haunting image to behold. Very memorable indeed. The associated museum is also well made. The Wuchang temple ruin was a valuable add-on, while the Chelongpu Fault Preservation Park was perhaps the most missable part of this tour, but still worth it for those with a deeper interest in earthquakes and the history and science involved.

   

  

Location: in the Wufeng District on the southern outskirts of Taichung City in north-west central Taiwan.

  

Google Maps locators:

 

9-21 Museum: [24.0422, 120.6993]

  

Jiji Wuchang Temple ruin: [23.8314, 120.7922]

  

Chelongpu Fault Preservation Park: [23.7947, 120.7116]

  

  

Access and costs: a bit out of the way, but reachable by public transport and, more easily, by car; inexpensive.

  

Details: To get to the 9-21 Museum you can take bus line 50 from the square to the north of the TRA train station in Taichung Cit; the ride takes ca. 40 minutes (33 stops) and ends at the roundabout in Guangfu New Village. From there you have to walk further along Xinsheng Rd., east-bound, for ca 500 yards (0.5 km) to get to the museum entrance.

  

If you’re coming by car, you’ll find a large car park just opposite the museum.

  

Opening times: Tuesdays to Sundays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

  

Admission 50 NTD.

  

To get to the Jiji Wuchang Temple ruin you need to have a car and use GPS/SatNav. The site is freely accessible at all times, but only daylight hours makes sense, of course.

  

To get to the Chelongpu Fault Preservation Park you should ideally also have a car, though it’s not impossible to get there by public transport, just a little inconvenient (bus 6188 to Zhushan Interchange and then a five-minute walk). Opening times: Tuesday to Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., admission 50 NTD.

  

As I said at the beginning of the “what there is to see” section above, I was taken around the area and to the sites outlined above by an American guide who came to Taiwan decades ago (around the time martial law was lifted in the late 1980s – see history) and has developed quite some expertise in this field. In fact, she had contacted me about the possibility of a dark-tourism collaboration even before I planned my trip to Taiwan. That gave me another prompt to get planning, in fact. We would have met up in spring 2020 had it not been for the global Covid-19 pandemic. That forced me to postpone the trip repeatedly, but it also gave us more time for correspondence. Then in December 2023 we finally managed to meet up and she took my wife and me on this earthquake-themed day out from Taichung (where she is based). She said she might add a tour like that to her guiding portfolio on her website at some point. For the time being, though, contact me if you’re interested in being given a tour like she did for us.

  

  

Time required: I spent roughly two hours at the 9-21 Museum alone, including a ca. 30-minute guided intro tour with a local museum guide. The whole excursion by car, including the Wuchang Temple ruin, the Chelongpu Fault Preservation Park and a lunch break, took ca. six hours.

  

  

Combinations with other dark destinations: In general see under Taiwan.

  

Taichung City, the natural jumping-off place for this excursion, doesn’t have any specifically dark attractions itself, although you can find some buildings from the Japanese colonial era as well as a rather spectacular abandoned high-rise – see under Taiwan >photos.

  

  

Combinations with non-dark destinations: The nearby city of Taichung is now Taiwan’s second largest by population (having overtaken Kaohsiung in the early 2020s) and a worthwhile stop, though it is far less touristy than, say, Tainan, Daxi or the capital Taipei. In the centre there are a few architecturally attractive Japanese colonial buildings, including in particular the old train station (now eclipsed by a towering modern structure) and the Taichung Prefecture Hall. The city also sports a Museum of Natural Science (Tue-Sun 9-17h, 100 NTD), a Botanical Garden (9-22h daily, free) and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Tue-Sun 9-17/18h, free).

  

See also under Taiwan in general.