The 1906 Meishan earthquake () was centered on ''Moe'akhe'' (), Kagi-cho,

Japanese Taiwan The island of Taiwan, together with the Penghu Islands, became an annexed territory of the Empire of Japan in 1895, when the Qing dynasty ceded Fujian-Taiwan Province in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the Japanese victory in the First Sin ...

(modern-day

Meishan natively Meishan ( zh, s=眉山; Sichuanese Pinyin: Mi2san1; local pronunciation: ; zh, p=Méishān , w=Mei-shan), formerly known as Meizhou () or Qingzhou (), is a prefecture-level city with 2,955,219 inhabitants as of 2020 census of whom ...

Chiayi County Chiayi is a County (Taiwan), county in Taiwan. Located in Regions of Taiwan, southwestern Taiwan surrounding but not including Chiayi City, it is the sixth largest county in the island of Taiwan. Its major tourist destination is Alishan Natio ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

) and occurred on March 17. Referred to at the time as the Great Kagi earthquake (), it is the third-deadliest earthquake in Taiwan's

recorded history Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using the historical method. For broader world h ...

, claiming around 1,260 lives. The shock had a

surface-wave magnitude The surface wave magnitude (M_s) scale is one of the magnitude scales used in seismology to describe the size of an earthquake. It is based on measurements of Rayleigh surface waves that travel along the uppermost layers of the Earth. This mag ...

of 6.8 and a Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent'').

Earthquake

The earthquake struck at 06:43 local time on 17 March 1906, at a focal depth of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi). The event created the Meishan fault, a fault with a length of 25 kilometres (15.5 mi) stretching through modern-day

. Aftershocks continued throughout the day, hampering rescue efforts.

Damage

Reports vary slightly, but according to the official

Central Weather Bureau The Central Weather Administration (CWA; ) is the government meteorological research and forecasting institution of Taiwan (the Republic of China). In addition to meteorology, the Central Weather Administration also makes astronomical observation ...

summary, the casualties and damage were as follows: *Deaths: 1,258 *Injuries: 2,385 *Houses destroyed: 6,769 *Houses damaged: 14,218 Fusakichi Omori, a pioneering

seismologist Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

from

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

who arrived shortly after the earthquake believed that the high number of casualties was due to the construction of the local houses. Loosely cemented with mud, the combination of sun-dried mud brick walls and heavy roofing beams was thought to be responsible for many dwellings collapsing, killing or injuring the inhabitants. He also found evidence of

soil liquefaction Soil liquefaction occurs when a cohesionless saturated or partially saturated soil substantially loses Shear strength (soil), strength and stiffness in response to an applied Shear stress, stress such as shaking during an earthquake or other s ...

, and stated that the town of Bishō (Meishan) had been completely destroyed by the quake. Omori's figures give slightly different casualty rates, and very different statistics for building damage: *Deaths: 1,266 *Injuries: 2,476 *Houses destroyed: 7,284 *Houses damaged: 30,021

Reaction

The veteran missionary William Campbell wrote: The Japanese colonial authorities in Taihoku (Taipei) sent teams of medical personnel to assist, and Campbell reported that shortly after the earthquake reconstruction efforts were well advanced. At the time some writers suggested a link between the Meishan quake and the great

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...

, which occurred a month later, while some religious groups linked it not only with the San Francisco disaster, but also an earlier earthquake in

Cambria Cambria is a name for Wales, being the Latinised form of the Welsh name for the country, . The term was not in use during the Roman period (when Wales had not come into existence as a distinct entity) or the early medieval period. After the ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and other natural disasters as a sign of the end-times.

References

External links

* {{Earthquakes in Taiwan Meishan Earthquake, 1906

March 1906 Chiayi County Earthquakes in Taiwan

Earthquake

Damage

Reaction

See also

References

External links