Taipei: An earthquake offshore Taiwan with a magnitude of 7.2 rocked the capital Taipei on Wednesday morning, knocking out power in several parts of the city and sparking a tsunami warning for the islands of southern Japan and the Philippines. Taiwan television stations showed footage of some collapsed buildings in the eastern county of Hualien, near the quake’s epicentre, and media reported some people were trapped. The quake hit at 07:58 a.m. (2358 GMT) at a depth of 15.5km (9.6 miles) just off the eastern coast of Taiwan, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration. It was the strongest quake to hit the island in 25 years, state media said. Japan issued an evacuation advisory for the coastal areas of the southern prefecture of Okinawa. Tsunami waves of up to 3 metres (10 feet) were expected to reach large areas of Japan’s southwestern coast, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, which put the quake magnitude at 7.5.