The China seismic intensity scale is a national standard of the

People's Republic of 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 ...

used to measure seismic intensity. Similar to EMS-92 on which CSIS drew reference, seismic impacts are classified into 12 degrees of intensity, or ''liedu'' (, literally "degrees of violence") in

Roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...

from I for insensible to XII for landscape reshaping. The scale was initially formalized by 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) in 1980, therefore often referred to by its original title as "China Seismic Intensity Scale (1980)". It was later revised, and adopted as a national standard, or

Guobiao The National Standards of the People's Republic of China (), coded as , are the standards issued by the Standardization Administration of China under the authorization of Article 10 of the Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China. ...

, series GB/T 17742-1999 by then National Quality and Technology Supervision Administration (no
General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine of P.R.C.
AQSIQ) in 1999. The standard was set for revision not long before the

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 ...

''Liedu'' scale

Unlike the magnitude scales that objectively estimate the released seismic energy, ''liedu'' denotes how strongly an earthquake affects a specific place. It is determined by a combination of subjective evaluations (such as human senses and building damage) and objective kinetic measures. Building damage are further refined with a combination of descriptive qualifiers and a numeric evaluation process. The following is an unofficial translation of the Appendix I of GB/T 17742-1999. Notes about qualifiers: "very few" – <10%; "few" – 10% – 50%; "most" – 50% – 70%; "majority" – 70% – 90%; "commonly" – >90%.

Applications

Historic local seismic liedu is an important reference in quake proofing existing and future buildings. The national standard Code for Seismic Design of Buildings (GB 500011-2001) published in 2001 and partially revised shortly after the

includes a list of liedu that each building in designated cities is expected to resist.

Notes and references

External links

* {{Seismic scales Seismic intensity scales Guobiao standards Earthquake engineering Science and technology in China 1999 introductions

''Liedu'' scale

Applications

See also

Notes and references

External links