Kaohsiung

TAIPEI (AFP) – Taiwan's scientists are investigating a suspected fault that could have been responsible for a powerful earthquake that injured 96 people last week, a seismologist said Sunday.

The 6.4-magnitude quake rocked the south of the island March 4, derailing a carriage on a high-speed train, toppling farm houses and momentarily cutting off electricity to more than half a million homes.

The tremor -- the biggest ever to hit the Kaohsiung area in a century -- immediately sparked concern and prompted scientists to review the existing geological records for the area.

Kuo Kai-wen, the head of the official Seismology Centre, told AFP that the subsequent aftershock records indicated that "there may be a blind or an unidentified faultline in the area."

A blind fault means a thrust fault that is "buried" under the uppermost layers of rock in the earth's crust.

The relevant data collected by the centre will be used for the investigation currently being done by experts from the Central Geological Survey, the National Central University, and the island's top academic body Academia Sinica, Kuo said.

About 99 schools have reported an estimated total of 40 million Taiwan dollars (1.3 million US) in quake damage. The tremor also caused millions of dollars in damage to infrastructure and businesses, officials said.

Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.

In September 1999, a 7.6-magnitude quake killed around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island's history.