1976 Songpan–Pingwu Earthquake
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The 1976 Songpan–Pingwu earthquake that struck
Songpan Songpan County, formerly Songzhou, is a county in northwestern Sichuan province, China, and is one of the 13 counties administered by the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. It has an area of , and a population of approximately 68,000 ...
and Pingwu counties in
Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
consisted of three mainshocks on the 16th, 21st, and 23rd (UTC) of August. A 1984 report gave the magnitudes as 7.2, 6.7, and 7.2, respectively (scale not specified).. The magnitudes were subsequently recalculated as 6.7, 6.3, and 6.4 on the scale, and 7.0, 6.6, and 6.7 on the scale. These were preceded by an
earthquake swarm In seismology, an earthquake swarm is a sequence of seismic events occurring in a local area within a relatively short period. The time span used to define a swarm varies, but may be days, months, or years. Such an energy release is different fr ...
lasting three years. During the period from August 16 to August 31 there were over 400 aftershocks of magnitude 3.0 or greater. Short term earthquake warning were issued 3 months before the earthquake. There were 38 dead in the four counties struck—Songpan, Pingwu, Maowen and Nanping. More than 5,000 houses collapsed and 2800 heads of livestock lost. The earthquake was felt as far as Gaotai,
Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...
to the west,
Kunming Kunming is the capital and largest city of the province of Yunnan in China. The political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province, Kunming is also the seat of the provincial government. During World War II, Kunming was a Ch ...
,
Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...
to the south,
Hohhot Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the Capital (political), capital of Inner Mongolia in the North China, north of the China, People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrativ ...
,
Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...
to the north, and
Changsha Changsha is the capital of Hunan, China. It is the 15th most populous city in China with a population of 10,513,100, the Central China#Cities with urban area over one million in population, third-most populous city in Central China, and the ...
,
Hunan Hunan is an inland Provinces of China, province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the Administrative divisions of China, province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Gu ...
to the east; an area with a maximum radius of 1,150 kilometers (714 miles). The total number of casualties was 800, 600 of them slightly injured, mostly due to mudslides. The Earthquake Administration of Sichuan won the Chinese National Science and Technology Award of 1978 for successfully predicting the earthquake.


See also

*
1976 Tangshan earthquake The 1976 Tangshan earthquake () was a 7.6 earthquake that hit the region around Tangshan, Hebei, China, at 3:42 a.m. on 28 July 1976. The maximum intensity of the earthquake was XI (''Extreme'') on the Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli sca ...
(July 27/28) * 1976 Longling earthquake (May 29) *
List of earthquakes in 1976 This is a list of earthquakes in 1976. Only earthquakes of magnitude 6 or above are included, unless they result in damage and/or casualties, or are notable for some other reason. All dates are listed according to UTC time. Maximum intensities ...
*
List of earthquakes in China This is a list of earthquakes in China, part of the series of list of disasters in China by death toll, lists of disasters in China. Earthquakes in the loess plateau where residents lived in yaodong caves tended to have big casualties, includin ...
*
List of earthquakes in Sichuan This is a list of earthquakes that occurred in Sichuan province of China. Earthquakes with magnitude of 7.0 or greater Earthquakes registering magnitudes between 6.0 and 6.9 See also *List of earthquakes in Yunnan *2019 Zigong earthquake, ...


Notes


Sources

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External links

* 1976 Songpan 1976 in China 1976 earthquakes Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture 1976 disasters in China 20th century in Sichuan {{China-stub