This morning an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 hit Taiwan. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years. At this point four deaths were reported and damage in the form of collapsed buildings was reported. For electronics industry players, this earthquake caused TSMC and several other chip factories to stop production for a while.
According to Bloomberg, TSMC evacuated workers from the factory area and is currently assessing the damage to their factories. Chip production equipment is very sensitive to strong vibrations. TSMC has not issued an official statement of any damage. If this happens, production can be interrupted for several weeks to repair the affected equipment.
This is news that is sure to worry customers such as Apple, NVIDIA and Qualcomm that rely heavily on TSMC's chip production technology. Factors of natural disasters such as earthquakes and storms as well as regional political instability caused by China are the main reasons why TSMC started opening chip fabrication factories outside of Taiwan in the last two years.