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The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake (
Postal romanization Postal romanization was a system of transliterating place names in China developed by postal authorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For many cities, the corresponding postal romanization was the most common English-language fo ...
: ''Shensi''), known in Chinese colloquially by its
regnal year A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year of rule, a t ...
as the Jiajing Great Earthquake "" ('' Jiājìng Dàdìzhèn'') or officially by its
epicenter The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a ...
as the Hua County Earthquake "" ('' Huàxiàn Dìzhèn''), occurred in the early morning of 2 February 1556 in Huaxian, Shaanxi, during the
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...
. Most of the residents there lived in
yaodong A yaodong (窰 in native Jin Chinese, or 窰洞 ''yáodòng'' in Beijing Mandarin) is a particular form of Earth sheltering, earth shelter dwelling common in the Loess Plateau in China's north. They are generally carved out of a hillside or exc ...
s—artificial caves in
loess A loess (, ; from ) is a clastic rock, clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposition (geology), deposits. A loess ...
cliffs—which collapsed and buried alive those sleeping inside. Modern estimates by China Earthquake Administration's publications put the direct deaths from the earthquake at roughly 100,000, while over 700,000 either migrated away or died from
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...
and plagues, which summed up to a total reduction of 830,000 people in Imperial ''
hukou ''Hukou'' ( zh, c=户口, l=household individual) is a system of household registration used in the People's Republic of China. The system itself is more properly called ''huji'' ( zh, c=户籍, l=household origin), and has origins in Histo ...
'' registration.
颤抖的地球—地震科学
'' (2005). Researched by China Earthquake Administration seismologists 冯万鹏,薑文亮,龚丽霞,公茂盛,胡进军; Revised by CEA seismologists 王文清,续春荣,张宝红; Edited by CEA chiefs 谢礼立,张景发. Tsinghua University Press. Pages XIII, 162. "1556年陕西华县8级大地震,死亡的83万人中, 据估计死于瘟疫者不下七八成" mong the 830,000 died, it is estimated that no less than 70% or 80% died from plagues/ref> It is one of the deadliest earthquakes and one of the deadliest natural disasters in Chinese history.


Tectonic setting

Huaxian lies within the Weihe Basin, one of the rift basins that form the southern and eastern boundaries of the Ordos Block. To the east the basin is continuous with the Shanxi Rift System. The Weihe basin formed during the
Paleogene The Paleogene Period ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Ma. It is the fir ...
in response to northwest–southeast directed extension. Following a tectonically quiet period during the late Paleogene the rift basins became active again in the
Neogene The Neogene ( ,) is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period million years ago. It is the second period of th ...
in response to NNW–SSE directed extension, activity that continues to the present. The basins in the Weihe-Shanxi Rift System are bounded by large
normal fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...
s, which have been responsible for large historical earthquakes. The Weihe Basin has an overall
half-graben A half-graben is a geological structure bounded by a fault along one side of its boundaries, unlike a full graben where a depressed block of land is bordered by parallel faults. Rift and fault structure A rift is a region where the lithosphere ...
geometry, with the main controlling faults, such as the Huashan Fault and North Qinling Fault, forming the southern boundary.


Earthquake

The
epicenter The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a ...
was in the
Wei River The Wei River () is a major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. It is the largest tributary of the Yellow River and very important in the early development of Chinese civilization. In ancient times, such as in the Records ...
Valley in Shaanxi Province, near Huaxian (now
Huazhou District Huazhou District (), formerly Hua County or Huaxian (), is a district of Weinan, Shaanxi province, China. It was upgraded from a county to a district in 2015. The district spans an area of , and has a population of about 324,300 as of 2012. His ...
of Weinan),
Weinan Weinan ( zh, s=渭南 , p=Wèinán) is a prefecture-level city in east-Guanzhong, central Shaanxi, Shaanxi province, northwest China. The city lies on the lower section of the Wei River confluence into the Yellow River, about east of the provinc ...
and
Huayin Huayin is a county-level city in Weinan, Shaanxi 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 count ...
. Huaxian was completely destroyed, killing more than half the residents of the city, with an estimated death toll in the hundreds of thousands. The situation in Weinan and Huayin was similar. In certain areas, crevices opened in the earth. Destruction and death were widespread, affecting places as far as from the epicenter. The earthquake also triggered landslides, which contributed to the massive death toll. The rupture occurred during the reign of the
Jiajing Emperor The Jiajing Emperor (16September 150723January 1567), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizong of Ming, personal name Zhu Houcong, art name, art names Yaozhai, Leixuan, and Tianchi Diaosou, was the 12th List of emperors of the Ming ...
of the
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...
. Therefore, in the Chinese historical record, this earthquake is often referred to as the Jiajing Great Earthquake. In the annals 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 ...
it was described in this manner: The earthquake damaged many of the Forest of Stone
stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...
s badly. Of the 114 Kaicheng Stone Classics, 40 were broken in the earthquake. The scholar Qin Keda lived through the earthquake and recorded details. One conclusion he drew was that "at the very beginning of an earthquake, people indoors should not go out immediately. Just crouch down and wait. Even if the nest has collapsed, some eggs may remain intact." The shaking reduced the height of the Small Wild Goose Pagoda in
Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...
by three levels.


Geology

Modern estimates, based on geological data, give the earthquake a magnitude of approximately 8 Mw on the
moment magnitude scale The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mwg, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. was defined in a 1979 paper ...
and XI (catastrophic damage) on the Mercalli scale, though more recent discoveries have shown that it was more likely 7.9 Mw. Following the earthquake,
aftershock In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in Epicenter, the same area of the Mainshock, main shock, caused as the displaced Crust (geology), crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthq ...
s continued several times a month for half a year. Shaking was felt strongly across the Weihe Basin region. The maximum China seismic intensity was XI to XII occurring in Huaxian and Weinan. This would support the theory of the earthquake rupturing along the Huashan and Weinan faults. Intensity VIII was observed throughout the basin and the intensity X+ zone was long. Studies about the earthquake published between 1998 and 2017 presumed scarps along the Huashan and Weinan faults, some higher than , were produced by the 1556 earthquake. The fault zone is located northeast of
Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...
. This normal fault generally trends east–west and dips to the north. A 1995 study said scarps along the Huashan Fault were high. Near the town of Huashan, the fault
terrace Terrace may refer to: Landforms and construction * Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river * Terrace, a street suffix * Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk a ...
contained
Yangshao culture The Yangshao culture ( zh, c=仰韶文化, p=Yǎngsháo wénhuà) was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the middle reaches of the Yellow River in China from around 5000 BC to 3000 BC. The Yangshao culture saw social and ...
artefacts which were 4,000 years old. In a separate 1998 study, the fault scarps were about high. Scarps of the Weinan Fault are less detailed in published works with most focused around the Chishui River area. Two studies in 1992 and 2010 estimated the fault scarps at and respectively. There has not been any research to confirm these scarps were produced by the earthquake or formed by multiple events. Assuming both faults ruptured during the earthquake, which runs for a total , the would be 7.0–7.5, according to empirical scaling relationships between magnitude and fault rupture length. This suggest previous values for the earthquake's magnitude were overestimated.


Affected area

More than 97 counties in the provinces of Shaanxi,
Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...
,
Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...
,
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 ...
,
Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...
,
Shandong Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...
,
Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...
,
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 ...
,
Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...
and
Anhui Anhui is an inland Provinces of China, province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiang ...
were affected. Buildings were damaged slightly in the cities of
Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
,
Chengdu Chengdu; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, previously Romanization of Chinese, romanized as Chengtu. is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a ...
and
Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
. An area was destroyed, and in some counties as much as 60% of the population was killed. The cost of damage done by the earthquake is almost impossible to measure in modern terms.


Death toll

Modern estimates by China Earthquake Administration's publications put the direct deaths from the earthquake to be roughly 100,000, while 730,000 either migrated away or died from
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...
and plagues, which summed up to a total reduction of 830,000 people in Imperial ''
hukou ''Hukou'' ( zh, c=户口, l=household individual) is a system of household registration used in the People's Republic of China. The system itself is more properly called ''huji'' ( zh, c=户籍, l=household origin), and has origins in Histo ...
'' registration. However, the CEA did not explain how it estimated the number of direct deaths to be 100,000. As the CEA did not estimate the total deaths (including subsequent famine and plagues), a handful of CEA staff scientists gave their own estimates, such as 450,000 or 530,000. Whatever the number may be, it is one of the deadliest
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 ...
, in turn making it one of the top disasters in China by death toll. Millions of people at the time lived in yaodongs—artificial
loess A loess (, ; from ) is a clastic rock, clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposition (geology), deposits. A loess ...
caves—on high cliffs in the
Loess Plateau The Loess Plateau is a plateau in north-central China formed of loess, a clastic rock, clastic silt-like sediment formed by the accumulation of Dust#Atmospheric, wind-blown dust. It is located southeast of the Gobi Desert and is surrounded by t ...
. Much of the population in some of the affected areas lived in yaodongs. This was a major contributing factor to the very high death toll. The earthquake collapsed many caves and caused
landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...
s which destroyed many more.


Foreign reaction

The Portuguese Dominican friar Gaspar da Cruz, who visited
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 ...
later in 1556, heard about the earthquake, and later reported about it in the last chapter of his book ''A Treatise of China'' (1569). He viewed the earthquake as a possible punishment for people's
sin In religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law or a law of the deities. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered ...
s, and the Great Comet of 1556 as, possibly, the sign of this calamity (as well as perhaps the sign of the birth of the
Antichrist In Christian eschatology, Antichrist (or in broader eschatology, Anti-Messiah) refers to a kind of entity prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ and falsely substitute themselves as a savior in Christ's place before ...
). (Translation of da Cruz's 1569 book, with C.R. Boxer's comments)


See also

*
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 disasters in China by death toll This is a list of disasters in China by death toll. Earthquake A full list in chronological order is detailed in the list of earthquakes in China. Among which, the most fatal ones were: Famine A full list in chronological order is detailed in ...
* List of historical earthquakes


References


Further reading

*.


External links


Ruins of Hua County Earthquake
{{DEFAULTSORT:1556 Shaanxi Earthquake Earthquakes in Shaanxi Shaanxi Earthquake, 1556 Shanxi earthquake, 1556 Disasters in the Ming dynasty