Earthquakes, also known as ground motion and earth vibrations, are a natural phenomenon caused by the rapid release of energy in the earth's crust, during which seismic waves are generated. According to statistics, there are about 5 million earthquakes on the earth every year, that is, tens of thousands of earthquakes occur every day. The vast majority of them are too small or too far away for people to feel; there are about a dozen or twenty earthquakes that can really cause serious harm to humanity; and about one or two earthquakes that can cause particularly serious disasters. Earthquakes that people do not feel must be recorded with seismometers; different types of seismometers can record earthquakes of different intensities and distances. Thousands of seismic instruments of various kinds are operating around the world, monitoring the movement of earthquakes day and night.
The current level of science and technology cannot predict the arrival of earthquakes, and earthquakes will be unpredictable for a long time to come. The so-called examples of successful earthquake prediction are basically coincidences. For earthquakes, what we should do is to improve the seismic resistance of buildings and do a good job of defense, rather than predicting earthquakes.
Do you know how many of the top ten earthquakes in the continent have been recorded since they were recorded?
10. Great earthquake in southern Beijing 1057
Death toll: 25,000 Magnitude: 6.8
On March 30, 1057, a strong earthquake occurred on the line between Tongzhou District and Daxing District in southern Beijing and Baodi District in Tianjin, and the magnitude of the earthquake was speculated to be about 7, because the earthquake occurred during the Song-Liao military confrontation, so there were not many historical records of this earthquake at that time.
The existing historical records record that the Great Earthquake in Youzhou Prefecture, the Great Bad City Guo, and the repression of tens of thousands of dead. In addition, historical records also record that a relatively strong earthquake occurred in north-central Hebei a few weeks before the earthquake, and the epicenter was between Xiongzhou and Bazhou.
The magnitude of the earthquake was large, the intensity of the epicenter was at least 9 degrees or more, and the earthquake caused at least tens of thousands of deaths.
There is considerable controversy about the time of this earthquake, and different literature records that the earthquake occurred on March 24, 1057, and between April 9 and May 26, 1057. In fact, the reason for the controversy about the time of this earthquake is because first in 1057 there were many seismic activities on the border of Song and Liao, and secondly, the earthquake in 1057 happened to be during the war and chaos of the Military Confrontation between Song and Liao, so there is some controversy about the actual time of the earthquake, but modern archaeological findings have found a large number of relics from ancient earthquakes in northern Tianjin and southeastern Beijing [such as the remains of sandblasting on the surface], and a large number of cultural relics from the Song Dynasty period have been found buried underground. This all indicates that there was a strong earthquake here in 1057.
9. Great earthquake in Gulang County, Gansu Province, 1927
Death toll: 41471 Magnitude: 7.6
The Gansu Earthquake refers to the earthquake that occurred in Gulang County, Gansu Province. Gulang belongs to the earthquake-prone zone, and in the 20th century there were three influential and recorded earthquakes in the area. At 06:32:47 on May 23, 1927, a magnitude 8 earthquake occurred in the area of Shuixiakou (epicenter position: 37.60N, 102.80E) northwest of Gulang County, Gansu Province, China. The intensity of the epicenter was as high as 11 degrees, and the polar earthquake area was mainly distributed in Gulang County and its surroundings, the Twin Towers, the Shuixiakou, the Shenjiawopu, the Holly Top Line, the Ancient City, Zhangyibao and other areas. The caves in the area all collapsed, and more than 9/10 of the houses collapsed. There are only 300 households in Gulang County, and the houses are in ruins, killing more than 700 men and women; the Dongchuan landslide next to Yangjiawazhuang Village on the outskirts of the city, which is 1.5 kilometers long, covers the villages under the mountain, and 41,471 people die in the urban and rural areas of the county.
hypocenter
Ancient waves after the earthquake
8. The 1668 Tancheng earthquake in Shandong Province
Death toll: 42578 Magnitude: 8.5
On the night of July 25, 1668, an earthquake of magnitude 8.5 occurred at the junction of Tancheng-Linyi-Linshu in Shandong Province, China, according to the records of the disaster at that time, the epicenter intensity of this earthquake reached the highest 12 degrees, and this earthquake caused more than 400 counties and cities in Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Hebei, Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Zhejiang, Shanxi, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Fujian and other counties and cities in East China, Central China, and South China, and even the Korean Peninsula had a strong earthquake.
The earthquake was also the largest ever recorded earthquake in eastern China, and was one of three mega earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 or above in China.
A canyon formed by an earthquake
Seismic fault zones
7. 1739 Ningxia Pingluo, Yinchuan earthquake
Death toll: 50,000 Magnitude: 8
At about 8:00 p.m. Beijing time on January 3, 1739, the largest earthquake of magnitude 8 in the history of the area suddenly occurred in the Yinchuan area, and the towns and villages in the Yinchuan Plain collapsed, crushing more than 50,000 people. In particular, Pingluo and its new canals 20 kilometers south, and Baofeng county, which is 25 kilometers north, were the most seriously affected, with city walls and houses destroyed, and the flat land either protruded into hills or sunk into swamps, and the cracks everywhere were several meters wide.
6. The Tongwei earthquake in Gansu in 1718
Death toll: 73,000 Magnitude: 7.5
The Tongwei earthquake struck Tongwei, Gansu, on June 19, 1718. Epicenter geographical coordinates: 35.08 °N, 105.2 °E, magnitude: 7.5 on the Richter scale.
During the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, Gong Jianzhong wrote "Earthquake Records", which detailed the Zhao family. The scene of the landslide buried in Yong'an Town: "When the earthquake occurred, the sky was dim, the light and fog were stirred, and the tremor was incessant, ten times more rapid and thunderous." The landslides in the north mountain area flew, rushing straight to the south flank of the mountain, crushing the twenty-mile people in the ring town, and its flat ground rushed into a high fu, pouring into the pass, and the mud was like paint, which was dazzling and tragic, just like Tongweiye. ”
The earthquake caused the northeast corner of Tongwei County to collapse, bubbling with yellow sand and black mud, the city wall collapsed, and the woolly mountain outside the city collapsed. The government office houses collapsed. Gangu County moved south from the north and destroyed thousands of houses. In the villages northwest of the city, all the livestock were crushed to death. The hardest-hit areas include more than 10 counties and cities such as Jingning, Zhuanglang and Qin'an. The earthquake affected Shanxi, Ningxia, Henan and other provinces. More than 40,000 people were killed and more than 30,000 injured in the earthquake.
Tongwei in 1943
5. 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan Province
Death toll: 87652 Magnitude: 8
The Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 [1], also known as the "Wenchuan Earthquake", occurred at 14:28:4 Beijing time on May 12, 2008, and the epicenter was located in Yingxiu Town, Wenchuan County, Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province (latitude 31.0°N, longitude 103.4°E).
According to the revised data of the China Earthquake Administration, the surface wave magnitude of the 5.12 Wenchuan earthquake was 8.0. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the seismic waves of the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake were confirmed to have orbited the earth for a total of 6 times. The earthquake affected most of China and many countries and regions in Asia, including Inner Mongolia in the north, Shanghai in the east, Tibet in the west, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other regions in the south, and Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan outside China.
The 5.12 Wenchuan earthquake severely damaged about 500,000 square kilometers, of which 10 counties (cities) were in the extremely hard-hit areas, 41 counties (cities) in the more severely affected areas, and 186 counties (cities) in the general disaster areas. As of September 25, 2008, the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake had killed 69,227 people, 17,923 people missing, 374643 injured to varying degrees, and 19,930,300 people had lost their homes, bringing the total number of people affected by the disaster to 46.256 million. As of September 2008, the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake caused direct economic losses of 845.14 billion yuan. The 5.12 Wenchuan earthquake was the most destructive, widespread, most severely damaged and most difficult to provide disaster relief since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
On March 2, 2009, with the approval of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, since 2009, May 12 has been the national "Disaster Prevention and Reduction Day" every year.
4. 1290 Ningcheng earthquake in Inner Mongolia
Death toll: 100,000 (estimated) Magnitude: 6.8
On October 4, 1290 (yuan, shizu to august 27, 27 yuan), a strong earthquake occurred near the ancient city of Daming (元大定府, then Wuping Road) in present-day Ningcheng County, Inner Mongolia. According to the Shizu Ji (世祖紀), which was compiled by Song Luan and others in the early Ming Dynasty (1370), the earthquake "killed 7,220 people and 7,220 people, 480 bad warehouses, and 480 houses." In the history of the Northeast Continent, this is one of the few strong earthquakes with a relatively high seismic intensity.
Ningcheng
3. The 1920 Haiyuan earthquake in Gansu
Death toll: 200,000 (estimated) Magnitude: 8.3
The Great Haiyuan Earthquake occurred at 12:60 gMT on December 16, 1920, and the epicenter was located in Haiyuan County, Gansu Province, China (now Haiyuan County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region). The scale is 8.5 magnitude Richter scale, the moment magnitude is 7.8 magnitude, the intensity is revised McGarley earthquake intensity twelfth degree, that is, the highest level of intensity earthquake, this earthquake is the highest intensity earthquake in the history of human civilization. The energy released was eleven times that of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, equivalent to about 200 million tons of TNT explosives, which was recorded by ninety-six earthquake monitoring bureaus around the world, and the aftershocks lasted for three years.
According to official statistics, about 234,117 people died, more than 73,604 people have died in Haiyuan alone, and all the nearby county seats within 200 kilometers have been affected, and about a quarter of the country's population has felt the shock. Clocks in haiphong, Vietnam, were halted due to an earthquake.
2. The 1976 Tangshan earthquake
Death toll: 242769 (estimated) Magnitude: 7.5
On July 28, 1976, 3:42:53.8 Beijing time.
At 118.1 degrees east longitude and 39.6 degrees north latitude, in the earth's crust at a depth of 16 kilometers from the ground, a strong earthquake of magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale suddenly occurred in the area of Fengnan District, Tangshan, Hebei Province, China, and 23 seconds later, Tangshan was reduced to rubble, 656136 of 682267 civil buildings collapsed and were severely damaged, 242769 people died, 164851 people were seriously injured, and 4204 children became orphans. Direct economic losses amounted to more than RMB3 billion. The scene of the earthquake victimization was extremely tragic, which is rare in the world.
Beijing, the capital of China, was shaking, and the tall beams and pillars of the Tiananmen Tower were "rattling" like convulsions. From Bohai Bay to Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, from the south of heilongjiang to the north of the Yangtze River, the people of this Chinese land felt an unusual shaking and a panic.
The Palmer Observatory in Alaska, the United States, quickly sounded a shocking alarm bell, and the world's major news agencies announced the disaster news to the world on the same day - the Hawaii Earthquake Observatory of the United States announced: An 8.1-magnitude earthquake occurred in China, and the epicenter was near Beijing!
The American Geological Survey announced that about 100 miles southeast of Beijing, at latitude 39.6° north and longitude 118.1° east, near Tianjin, an earthquake of magnitude 8.2 occurred.
The Royal Astronomical Observatory of the United Kingdom in Hong Kong, China, announced that an earthquake of about magnitude 8 occurred in China, with a epicenter at 39.6° north latitude and 111.1° east longitude, which is extremely close to Tangshan.
Taiwan's Central Meteorological Administration said that an 8-magnitude earthquake occurred in the north of the mainland, and the epicenter was near 135 kilometers east of Beijing.
4:30 a.m. China's National Earthquake Administration received earthquake emergency telegrams from 10 stations in Nanjing, Lanzhou, Kunming, etc., of which 6 stations gave earthquake magnitudes, but the data disparities were very large, some were set at level 8 or above, and some were set below level 7. As for the epicenter, there is only a rough estimate of "near Beijing".
6 a.m. The China Telecommunications Bureau reported that in the contact with all parts of the country, only the telephone communication in the Tangshan area was interrupted, and there was no response to several calls.
The real scene of the Tangshan earthquake
On July 28, 1976, China's Xinhua News Agency broadcast the following news to the world: A strong earthquake struck at 3:42 a.m. on July 28 in the Tangshan-Fengnan area of Hebei Province, Hebei Province. Tianjin and Beijing also had strong earthquake sensations. According to the mainland seismic network, the earthquake was 7.5 magnitude... A few days later, China again announced the approved magnitude of the earthquake: 7.8 on the Richter scale.
Tangshan, an industrial city of millions of people, has been wiped to the ground in a massive earthquake without warning. The book "The Shock of the Earth" published by The China Earthquake Publishing House published the following figures: 242769 deaths, 164851 serious injuries, and 544,000 minor injuries. The world's worst earthquake disaster of the last century occurred...
In the early morning of July 28, 1976, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake wiped out Tangshan, an industrial town with a population of one million, and instantly leveled it, leaving more than 240,000 living lives buried in the rubble.
1. The 1556 earthquake in Hua County, Shaanxi Province
Death toll: 830,000 (estimated) Magnitude: 8
The "Catalogue of Earthquakes in China" summarizes the description of this earthquake in the historical records as follows: "At the turn of the Qin and Jin Dynasties, the ground suddenly shook, the sound was like ten thousand thunder, the River Plains were cracked, the suburban ruins were relocated, the roads were changed, the trees were upside down, and the quemo was even more anti-wicked." The Five Peaks shook, and the universe shook everywhere. The valley changes, the rising one becomes a fu, the lower one becomes a ravine, or the gangfu falls into the flat land, or the flat ground protrudes from the mountain, the gushing one becomes a spring, the cracker becomes a stream, the ground crack is picturesque, and the big crack is water and fire. The well spring is dry and abandoned, and the new spring is gushing, spraying high and high. Mountains and rivers migrate for four or five miles, and the sand and sink for thousands of miles. The Huashan Zhuyu River is fertile in the north, and the Wei River rises for several days. Hua County, Weinan, Huayin, Chaoyi, Puzhou and other places are particularly serious. The towns and villages of the county fell, the tower collapsed, the bridge was destroyed, the monument was broken, the city walls, temples, officials, and people were destroyed, and the people were almost two thousand miles away. ”
The "History of Ming" records the earthquake as follows: "(Jiajing) In December of the thirty-fourth year, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Henan struck at the same time, and the sound was like thunder. Weinan, Huazhou, Chaoyi, Sanyuan, Puzhou and other places are particularly important. Or the ground is cracked and springy, there are fish, or the castle houses, plunged into the ground, or the flat ground suddenly becomes a mountain, or a few earthquakes a day, or a tired day of earthquakes. River, Wei Dapan, Huayue, Zhongnan Mountain Ming, Heqing for a few days. Officials, soldiers and civilians crushed 830,000 people to death. ”
Earthquake records
The earthquake was an extremely serious disaster in the mainland's historical records, and the number of deaths was rare in ancient and modern China and abroad. 101 counties were damaged by the earthquake, covering about 280,000 square kilometers in the five provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Jin, and Henan. The earthquake was felt in 227 counties in 5 provinces. The epicenter area is Weinan, Huaxian, Huayin, Tongguan, Chaoyi to Yongji County, Shanxi Province, east of Xi'an City, with about 2,700 square kilometers [3].
In 1556 (the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty), the 8.25-magnitude earthquake in Hua County, Shaanxi Province, according to the "History of Ming", recorded that the death toll exceeded 830,000. This figure is controversial, and the overall estimate of the actual death toll may be less than 450,000, which is still the world's first earthquake disaster.
It is estimated that the 8-magnitude earthquake in Hua County, Shaanxi Province, China, in 1556, killed as many as 830,000 people. The earthquake was so devastated by the devastation caused by the series of surface damage caused by the earthquake. Among them, the earthquake damage caused by loess landslides and loess collapse is particularly prominent, and landslides have blocked the Yellow River, causing the water of the dammed lake to rise and cause the river to flow backwards. Most of the local residents lived in cave dwellings in the loess mound, and the collapse of the loess soil caused huge casualties. Ground cracks, liquefaction of sand and damage to groundwater systems have further widened the situation. The earthquake resistance of houses in this area is poor, the earthquake occurred at midnight, people are difficult to prepare, most of them are crushed to death at home; after the earthquake, floods, fires, diseases and other secondary disasters are serious, coupled with the frequent drought in Shaanxi at that time, the people are hungry, and they have no self-help and recovery ability. These are the causes of disasters that cannot be ignored.
The damage from the earthquake was extremely severe. Houses, official offices, temples, and academies were in ruins; the taller buildings, pagodas, and palaces were all collapsed. The earthquake caused the rupture of Zhumaqiao in the west of Huayin County, and the land in the north of the city was cracked several inches and the water gushed several feet. The purple microscopic ponds in the south of Dali County and the Taibai ponds in the southwest of Chaoyi dried up after the earthquake. The banks of the Daqingguan and Puzhou rivers on the south bank of the Yellow River collapsed. The stone spring of Fenggu Mountain in Huaxian County was abandoned as a dry spring. According to the records of the prefectures, the earthquake killed a large number of people, and about 830,000 people were named on the newspaper alone. Historical documents record that "the risers and the laymen are all confused, and the walls and houses are silently collapsed, and suddenly they see the southwest sky cracking, flashing and shining, suddenly merging, and the earth is sinking, and the cracks are large, and the water comes out of the fire, and it is strange." There are those who fall into the water cave and come back, and there are those who fall under the water hole and reunite, and he digs more than one inch a day. The original Fu swirled and moved, and the ground was exhausted (changed) of the old traces. Tens of thousands of people were post-counted and injured."
epilogue
Earthquake disasters are instantaneous and sudden social disasters, earthquakes occur very suddenly, and an earthquake often lasts only a few tens of seconds. For the environment of a region, the damage caused is permanent.
For us ordinary people, there is nothing we can do in the face of any natural disaster, we can only start from ourselves, do a good job in earthquake prevention and disaster reduction, and have an earthquake first aid kit in place, so as not to be helpless before the disaster comes.