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 ma ...

(M_s) 4.1 to 5.9 that struck

Yingjiang County Yingjiang County (; th, เมืองหล้า) is a county in Dehong Prefecture, Yunnan province, China, bordering Burma's Kachin State to the west. Geography Yingjiang county has a border of with Kachin State, Myanmar in the west. Th ...

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

province,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

between August 19 (in UTC; August 20 local time) and September 3. It caused 5 deaths, 130 injuries (21 of which were serious), and

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. ...

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 mandated by the ''Law of the People's Republic of China on Protecting Against and Mitigating Earthquake Disasters of PRC'' to enforce the earthquake administration in the nation under the administrati ...

(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 time offset of UTC+08:00 (eight hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time), even though the country spans almost five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called ''Beijing Tim ...

(CST – 2135 UTC, 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 amount 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

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 The China seismic intensity scale (CSIS) is a national standard in the People's Republic of China used to measure seismic intensity. Similar to EMS-92 on which CSIS drew reference, seismic impacts are classified into 12 degrees of intensity, or ' ...

(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 events in China Earthquake clusters, swarms, and sequences Geography of Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture