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TEN YEARS ON, DISCOVERY CHANNEL LOOKS BACK AT THE CHICHI EARTHQUAKE THAT DEVASTATED TAIWAN
- What lessons have been learnt? Is Taiwan better prepared for the next quake? -

921 EARTHQUAKE SPECIAL marks the 10^th anniversary of the earthquake in ChiChi, Nantou, that devastated central Taiwan on September 21, 1999. The event and its aftermath sparked renewed interest in five main areas of innovation, and some individuals have strived to turn disaster into opportunity. In commemoration of this tragic event, Discovery Channel's 921 EARTHQUAKE SPECIAL also seeks to answer many questions: What has humankind learnt from the disaster? Is Taiwan safer from earthquakes a decade on? 

Before the Chichi Earthquake, Taiwan relied largely on an overstretched team of fire fighters, the police and the military in times of emergency or natural disasters. Following the 1999 earthquake, it was clear that a dedicated disaster-response team was needed to better handle such situations. 921 EARTHQUAKE SPECIAL  takes a look at the institutional response over the intervening years, from the establishment of a permanent search-and-rescue team to an early-warning system network. 

The vast majority of people who died in the Chichi Earthquake were killed by collapsed buildings. The tragedy prompted Taiwan's engineers to come up with ingenious ways of constructing sturdier buildings, using cutting-edge technologies, as well as simple, inexpensive "low-tech" solutions. There was also global concern that the world might lose a main supplier of critical high-tech equipment, as Taiwan is one of largest manufacturers. Consequently, companies have been forced to think out-of-the-box and develop quake-proof production processes. 

The Chichi Earthquake also sparked a wave of citizen-led initiatives in dealing with the aftermath of the natural disaster. Among them was Lin Sian-yi, an ordinary man with no legal training. Find out how in the face of intimidation and legal chicanery, Lin rallied the residents of an apartment block that collapsed, to file - and eventually win - a class-action suit against a construction company responsible for shoddy construction.

And finally, the most pertinent question of all and the Holy Grail of the earth sciences: Is it possible to predict an earthquake? Some of Taiwan's brightest minds have been seeking a solution that will enable humankind to be forewarned of impending earthquakes and be better prepared to face these natural disasters. 921 EARTHQUAKE SPECIAL looks at an array of possible prediction methods, from the plausible to the bizarre, before coming across what could possibly be the biggest breakthrough in the history of earthquake research.

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