
The 1303 Hongdong earthquake occurred in
Yuan dynasty of the
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries was the largest contiguous land empire in history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Europe, ...
, on September 25. The shock was estimated to have a moment magnitude of 7.6 and it had a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). This is one of the most fatal
earthquakes in China, in turn making it one of the top
disasters in China by death toll.
Geology
Because of the time period in which it struck, very little is known about the nature of the earthquake. However, its
epicentre was almost certainly located somewhere in what is now
Shanxi (山西) province, near the present-day towns of
Hongdong (洪洞) and Zhaocheng (赵城). The earthquake likely occurred on the Taigu fault zone in Shanxi, and several scarps and uplifts of local
faults were seen as evidence of this; the Taigu fault zone has not experienced any measurable activity since the 1303 earthquake.
The magnitude was calculated by modern
seismologist
Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other ...
s to be 8.0 on the
moment magnitude scale, though it is impossible to say for sure due to lack of accurate geological data.
Damage and casualties
This is one of the deadliest
earthquakes in China, in turn making it one of the top
disasters in China by death toll.
In the nearby towns of Zhaocheng and Hongdong, every major
temple and school building collapsed and over half the towns' populations perished. Every building in Huo county, Shanxi was destroyed.
In
Taiyuan
Taiyuan (; ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ; also known as (), ()) is the capital and largest city of Shanxi Province, People's Republic of China. Taiyuan is the political, economic, cultural and international exchange center of Shanxi Province. ...
and
Pingyang, nearly 100,000 houses collapsed and over 200,000 people died from collapsing buildings and
loess
Loess (, ; from german: Löss ) is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loess or similar deposits.
Loess is a periglacial or aeolian ...
caves in a similar manner to the situation that would be experienced 253 years later in the
1556 Shaanxi earthquake
The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake (formerly romanized ''Shensi''), known in Chinese colloquially by its regnal year as "" ('' Jiājìng Dàdìzhèn'') or officially by its epicenter as "" ('' Huàxiàn Dìzhèn''), occurred in the early morning of 23 ...
(陕西). Cracks in the ground turned into miniature rivers, and many canals in Shanxi Province were destroyed, along with city walls. Some reports stated that the earthquake even levelled mountains and hills, altering the topographic makeup of the region.
Landslide
Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated grade (slope), slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of ...
s and
soil subsidence and
liquefaction
In materials science, liquefaction is a process that generates a liquid from a solid or a gas or that generates a non-liquid phase which behaves in accordance with fluid dynamics.
It occurs both naturally and artificially. As an example of the ...
triggered by the shaking were a likely root cause of these large-scale environmental changes.
Rebuilding was generally slow, owing to the destroyed infrastructure of Shanxi and was interrupted by several other earthquakes in the following years.
The 1303 Hongdong earthquake, though currently the last to have occurred on its fault system, marked the start of a centuries-long episode of heightened earthquake activity throughout China,
the first of several to occur up to the end of the twentieth century. It was also the first of many examples of earthquakes that demonstrated the tendency of earthquakes in China to strike near loess plateaus.
See also
*
List of disasters in China by death toll
This is a list of disasters in China by death toll.
Earthquake
A full list in chronological order is detailed in the list of earthquakes in China. Among which, the most fatal ones were:
Famine
A full list in chronological order is detailed in ...
*
List of earthquakes in China
*
List of historical earthquakes
References
External links
Ruins of the Hongdong Earthquake (1303)– Science Museums of China
{{Earthquakes in China
Earthquakes in China
1303 in Asia
14th-century earthquakes
Disasters in Shaanxi
Disasters in Henan