earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

measuring 5.8 struck the province of

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 ...

in China at 22:55 local time (14:55

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 ...

), 17 June 2019. Changning and

Gong A gongFrom Indonesian language, Indonesian and ; ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ; ; ; ; is a percussion instrument originating from Southeast Asia, and used widely in Southeast Asian and East Asian musical traditions. Gongs are made of metal and ...

counties in

Yibin Yibin ( zh, s=宜宾 , t=宜賓 , p=Yíbīn , w=I-pin, region=CN-SC-15; Sichuanese Pinyin: ȵi2bin1; Sichuanese pronunciation: ) is a prefecture-level city in the southeastern part of Sichuan province, China, located at the junction of the Min ...

were particularly affected. 13 people died and more than 200 others were injured.

Tectonic setting

Sichuan lies within the zone of complex tectonics caused by the continuing convergence of the

Indian plate The Indian plate (or India plate) is or was a minor tectonic plate straddling the equator in the Eastern Hemisphere. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, the Indian plate broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana an ...

with the Eurasian plate. The

active fault An active fault is a fault that is likely to become the source of another earthquake sometime in the future. Geologists commonly consider faults to be active if there has been movement observed or evidence of seismic activity during the last 10,0 ...

ing in this area relates to the eastward movement of material away from the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...

, which has been uplifted by this

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 ...

. The largest structure in the area is the Longmenshan Fault, movement on which was responsible for the M7.9

2008 Sichuan earthquake An earthquake occurred in the province of Sichuan, China at 14:28:01 China Standard Time on May 12, 2008. Measuring at 8.0 (7.9–8.3 ), the earthquake's epicenter was located boxing the compass, west-northwest of Chengdu, the provincial ...

Earthquake

Based on the

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 ...

the earthquake was a result of oblique-slip faulting, dominantly reverse faulting with a component of strike-slip. Further analysis suggests that the initial movement was on a reverse fault followed by rupture along a shallow strike-slip fault. The reverse fault movement matches well with the known stress field in the area, but the strike-slip fault is less favourably orientated, suggesting the presence of elevated pore pressures due to water injection associated with solution mining of

rock salt Halite ( ), commonly known as rock salt, is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride ( Na Cl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pi ...

. Results from the analysis of

Interferometric synthetic-aperture radar Interferometric synthetic aperture radar, abbreviated InSAR (or deprecated IfSAR), is a radar technique used in geodesy and remote sensing. This geodetic method uses two or more synthetic aperture radar (SAR) radar imaging, images to generate maps ...

(InSAR) data indicate that the reverse fault was shallow enough to be intersected by the openhole sections of some of the injection wells. A number of aftershocks also occurred.

Damage

More than 20,000 houses were badly damaged and some roads, communication infrastructure and

hydroelectric power plant Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

s were also reported to be affected. There were 13 deaths overall, 9 of them in Changning County and the other 5 in Gongxian County. A further 220 people were reported injured, 6 of them critically and 16 severely. Total damage was estimated at billion ( million).

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sichuan Earthquake, 2019 2019 earthquakes

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

June 2019 in China Yibin 2019 disasters in China

Tectonic setting

Earthquake

Damage

See also

References

External links