The 2008 Yingjiang earthquakes were a series of major earthquakes ranging from

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 ...

(M_s) 4.1 to 5.9 that struck

Yingjiang County Yingjiang County ( zh, t=盈江縣, s=盈江县, p=Yíngjiāng Xiàn; ; Jingpho: ; ) is a county in Dehong Prefecture, Yunnan province, China, bordering Tengchong to the east, Lianghe County to the southeast, Longchuan County to the south and ...

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 ...

province,

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 ...

between August 19 (in

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

; August 20 local time) and September 3. It caused 5 deaths, 130 injuries (21 of which were serious), and RMB 2.7 billion in direct economic damage. USGS put the magnitude of the strongest one to M_w 6.0.

Earthquake

According to the

China Earthquake Administration The China Earthquake Administration (CEA; ) is a public institution managed by the State Council at the deputy ministerial level in charge of national earthquake disaster reduction work. It is currently managed by the Ministry of Emergency Managem ...

(CEA) and its subordinat
China Earthquake Network Center
(CENC), a M_s 5.0 earthquake struck

province, China on August 20, 2008, at 05:35:09

China Standard Time The time in China follows a single standard UTC offset, time offset of UTC+08:00, where Beijing is located, even though the country spans five geographical time zones. It is the largest sovereign nation in the world that officially observes only ...

(CST – 2135

, August 19, 2008). A CEA report published on September 17 described two additional strong quakes of M_s 4.9 and M_s 5.9 in the same area the following day; CENC's data base, on the other hand, did not include the earthquake of M_s 4.9 at 20:20 CST on August 21 as the CEA report described, but reveals additional ones after the date.

Sequence of earthquakes

Note: Earthquakes #4 and after are not included in CEA summary; earthquake #2 is unaccounted for in CENC data base.

Impact

Casualties

According to CEA, these earthquakes caused 5 deaths and 21 others were seriously hurt, as well as 109 minor injuries. Through the Yunnan Earthquake Administration (YNEA), the provincial government invoked Level IV emergence response protocol in the relief. The number of affected people is said to be around 210,000, roughly 2/3 of the total population in the affected areas. Direct financial damage amounted to RMB 1.3 billion. In addition to building damage, the heaviest infrastructure damage occurred to water resources facilities.

Intensity

On the seismic intensity map published by CEA, maximum intensity of these earthquakes reached liedu VIII on China seismic intensity scale (CSIS), which is somewhat equivalent to VIII (''Severe'') on the MMI and from which CSIS drew reference. Liedu-VIII zone spans 26 km² near the epicenter. Total area of liedu VI (Slightly damaging) and above is a north–south oval of 4,511 km².

References

External links

* {{Earthquakes in Myanmar 2008 Yingjiang Earthquakes in Myanmar Yingjiang earthquakes Yingjiang, China August 2008 in China Earthquake clusters, swarms, and sequences Geography of Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture