The 1918 Shantou earthquake occurred in

Shantou Shantou, Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanization of Chinese, romanized as Swatow and sometimes known as Santow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong, China, with a total population of 5,502,031 as of the 20 ...

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

Republic of China 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 ...

. Serious damage and high casualty numbers were reported in Guangdong and the surrounding provinces. It also caused some damage in

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was under British Empire, British rule from 1841 to 1997, except for a Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, brief period of Japanese occupation during World War II from 1941 to 1945. It was a crown colony of the United Kingdom from 1841 ...

Earthquake

The event was a large

intraplate earthquake An intraplate earthquake occurs in the ''interior'' of a Plate tectonics, tectonic plate, in contrast to an interplate earthquake on the ''boundary'' of a tectonic plate. They are relatively rare compared to the more familiar interplate earthqu ...

occurring within the Eurasian plate, at the margin of the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...

. It displayed a strike-slip

focal mechanism The focal mechanism of an earthquake describes the Fault (geology)#Slip.2C heave.2C throw, deformation in the Hypocenter, source region that generates the seismic waves. In the case of a Fault (geology), fault-related event, it refers to the ori ...

. This location hosts a rift zone, and was previously the site of

subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at the convergent boundaries between tectonic plates. Where one tectonic plate converges with a second p ...

and

collision In physics, a collision is any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. Although the most common use of the word ''collision'' refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great for ...

during the

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...

. During the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

extensional tectonics Extensional tectonics is concerned with the structures formed by, and the Tectonics, tectonic processes associated with, the stretching of a planetary body's Crust (geology), crust or lithosphere. Deformation styles The types of structure and the ...

occurred. At least 14 earthquakes greater than magnitude 6.0 have been recorded historically. Offshore is the Littoral Fault Zone, a NE–ENE trending fault zone which runs parallel to the coast. Another fault, the Huanggangshui Fault, intersects the Littoral Fault Zone in a NE direction. In 1600, another magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurred in the same location as the 1918 event.

Damage

The earthquake occurred on February 13, 1918, at 14:07 in the afternoon. The epicenter location is believed to be centered off Nan'ao Island or about 300 km northeast of the territory of Hong Kong, where the quake caused only minor damage and cracks to buildings in the territory.The Standard HK.
The Standard.com
." ''Article.'' Retrieved on 2008-12-16. Nearer to the epicenter area, the earthquake had a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). The eight provinces that were affected by the earthquake were Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Hubei. Shaking was strong enough to cause damage to be felt over a 500,000 km² area, covering 130 counties. In Zhao'an, Fujian Province alone, more than 3,000 homes collapsed, trapping or killing many residents. The Chao'an District of Chaozhou City in Guangdong Province saw 20% of all residential buildings completely destroyed and another 40% partially collapsed. In the prefectural-level city of Jieyang, almost all of the homes in the area were damaged, with at least half of them completely destroyed. Many pagodas, homes and temples in

Suzhou Suzhou is a major prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu province, China. As part of the Yangtze Delta megalopolis, it is a major economic center and focal point of trade and commerce. Founded in 514 BC, Suzhou rapidly grew in size by the ...

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

and

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

partially collapsed or were damaged due to the earthquake. The death toll from the disasters was at least a thousand, with many more wounded. The casualties included foreign traders and diplomats. It is the only earthquake in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

's history to have caused damage. It was estimated to reach intensity VII on the

Modified Mercalli intensity scale The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS) measures the effects of an earthquake at a given location. This is in contrast with the seismic magnitude usually reported for an earthquake. Magnitude scales measure the inherent force or ...

, Since the Royal Observatory, Hong Kong did not start operating long-period

seismograph A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground displacement and shaking such as caused by quakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The out ...

s until 1921. According to the '' Hongkong Telegraph'', the quake threw the whole Central District into a state of panic. The shock lasted about half a minute and could be felt over the entirety of

Hong Kong Island Hong Kong Island () is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. The island, known originally and on road signs simply as "Hong Kong", had a population of 1,289,500 and a population density of , . It is the second largest island in Hong Kon ...

and

Kowloon Kowloon () is one of the areas of Hong Kong, three areas of Hong Kong, along with Hong Kong Island and the New Territories. It is an urban area comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It has a population of 2,019,533 and a populat ...

.Bard, Solomon.

002 002, 0O2, O02, OO2, or 002 may refer to: Airports *0O2, Baker Airport *O02, Nervino Airport Astronomy *1996 OO2, the minor planet 7499 L'Aquila *1990 OO2, the asteroid 9175 Graun Fiction *002, fictional British 00 Agent *''002 Operazione Luna'' ...

(2002). Voices from the Past: Hong Kong, 1842–1918. HK University Press. . pg 36 As a result of the earthquake, numerous fissures opened in the ground, most of them several meters long and tens of centimeters wide. However, larger cracks up to many tens of meters long and up to one meter wide also formed. One crack along a coastal road in Shantou measured up to 330 meters long, and began blasting hot water. In Zhangpu County numerous cracks as wide as 33 centimeters and 100 meters long erupted black and yellow mud but closed up after the tremor was over.

References

External links

Seismicity of Hong Kong

The contents of the publications of the Imperial Earthquake Investigation Committee
* {{DEFAULTSORT:1918 Shantou Earthquake History of Shantou Earthquakes in Guangdong Shantou Earthquake, 1918 Shantou Earthquake, 1918

1910s tsunamis Tsunamis in China 1918 disasters in Asia 1918 disasters in China February 1918 in Asia 20th century in Guangdong

Earthquake

Damage

See also

References

External links