The 1679 Sanhe-Pinggu earthquake () was a major quake that struck the

Zhili Zhili, alternately romanized as Chihli, was a northern administrative region of China since the 14th-century that lasted through the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty until 1911, when the region was dissolved, converted to a province, and renamed ...

(Greater

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

) region in Qing China on the morning of September 2, 1679. It is the largest recorded

surface rupture In seismology, surface rupture (or ground rupture, or ground displacement) is the visible offset of the ground surface when an earthquake rupture along a fault affects the Earth's surface. Surface rupture is opposed by buried rupture, where th ...

event to have occurred in the North China Plain. The epicenter was located approximately east of the Imperial Palace in Beijing.

Earthquake

The earthquake struck sometime between 9am and 11am on Saturday, September 2, 1679, and had its epicenter in Sanhe, modern day

Hebei Province Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...

. It had an estimated magnitude of 8.0 and ruptured along most of the Xiadian Fault's length. The strike-slip earthquake was located at a depth of and was the largest known earthquake to have occurred in the North China Plain.

Impact

The 1679 earthquake was most devastating for the towns of Sanhe and

Pinggu Pinggu District (), formerly Pinggu County (), lies in the far east of Beijing Municipality. It has an area of and a population of 396,701 (2000 Census). The district is subdivided into 2 subdistricts, 14 towns, and 2 townships. It borders the Be ...

, east of

. In these two towns, intensity is estimated to have reached X (extreme) while in Beijing the intensity reached VIII (severe). Sanhe was virtually destroyed while in Pinggu only between 30 and 40% households survived. Many buildings and structures in Beijing were also damaged or destroyed. The

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...

White Pagoda in Beihai Park and Desheng Gate were both destroyed. The

Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 1654– 20 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, born Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1661 to ...

survived the quake, but many officials and citizens in Beijing were killed. While the total number of fatalities is unknown, it is estimated that upwards of 45,500 were killed by the quake. The earthquake was felt as far west as

Gansu Province Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibeta ...

and as far northeast as Liaoning Province.

Future threat

While the Xiadian Fault is still active and poses a potential threat to the Greater Beijing region, earthquakes of this magnitude are predicted to occur only every 6,500 years along the slow moving fault. Other similar faults, however, exist in the Beijing region and are not properly understood. On average, a major earthquake is predicted to occur in the North China Plain every 300 years, most recently with the

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 scale. In minutes, 85 percen ...

. A 2007 study by Risk Management Solutions found that an earthquake similar in size to the 1679 Sanhe-Pinggu event could have devastating effects and result in the deaths of between 35,000 and 75,000 people. In addition, economic impacts at that time were estimated to be 445 billion

RMB The renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China and one of the world's most traded currencies, ranking as the fifth most traded currency in the world as of April 2022. ...

(c. $57 billion).

References

{{Earthquakes in China Earthquakes in China 1679 earthquakes 17th century in Beijing Disasters in Qing dynasty History of Hebei Langfang