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Ammon News - The deadly 7.4 magnitude earthquake that hit Taiwan on Wednesday and left at least 9 people dead, also damaged more than 100 buildings across the island, according to the National Fire Agency (NFA). About half of them were near the epicenter in Hualien County, where four structures partially collapsed.

In the capital Taipei, just 80 miles away, buildings also shook violently during what was Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in 25 years. But in a triumph of modern engineering, the soaring Taipei 101, once the world’s tallest skyscraper, emerged from the island’s latest seismic event undamaged.

Footage from the quake appears to show the 1,667-foot-tall tower slightly swaying, its structural flexibility helping to counter the powerful motion of the quake. This movement perfectly demonstrated how the skyscraper’s single most important defense against earthquakes is the very material it is constructed from: reinforced concrete.

Combining concrete’s compressive strength with steel’s tensile strength, the material makes the building flexible enough to sway, yet rigid enough to resist high winds and the typhoons that frequently hit Taiwan. (The principle that buildings can endure seismic forces by moving with them, rather than against them, has underpinned traditional architecture in earthquake-prone East Asian countries for centuries, from Japanese pagodas to Chinese palaces.)

High within the tower, however, another technological innovation helps protect the 101-story skyscraper — a huge orb-like device known as a tuned mass damper.