Figure 1. Top: The rate of magnitude 7 and larger earthquakes in eastern Taiwan could be unmatched compared with anywhere else in the world, with 13 such quakes striking since 1920. Seven of these occurred within 40 kilometers of the April 2, 2024, epicenter. Most of the earthquakes appear to have struck on the Longitudinal Valley Fault, which is inclined, or dipping, to the east, as seen in the cross section in Figure 2. While the 1920 magnitude 8.2 shock occurred farther offshore, its location uncertainty is also much greater than for more recent quakes. Bottom: Eastern Taiwan is relentlessly battered by typhoons, accelerating the erosion of the mountains uplifted by earthquakes. Credit: top panel, Stein et al., 2024, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, bottom panel: NOAA and Joint Typhoon Warning Center