The 2014 Ludian earthquake struck

Ludian County Ludian County () is a County (People's Republic of China), county under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Zhaotong, it lies in the north east of Yunnan, Yunnan Province, China, and shares land borders with Guizhou, Guizhou Provin ...

, Yunnan, China, with a

moment magnitude The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, 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. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...

of 6.1 on 3 August. The earthquake killed at least 617 people, injuring at least 2,400 others. , 112 people remain missing. Over 12,000 houses collapsed and 30,000 were damaged. According to the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

, the earthquake occurred WSW of

Zhaotong Zhaotong () is a prefecture-level city located in the northeast corner of Yunnan province, China, bordering the provinces of Guizhou to the south and southeast and Sichuan to the northeast, north, and west. History Zhaotong has historic and ...

city at 16:03 local time (08:03 UTC).

Tectonic setting

The Ludian earthquake occurred at 16:03, Beijing time (08:03 UTC), on 3 August 2014. American geological surveys indicated that the epicenter was WSW of

city at a depth of , in the quake-prone province of Yunnan in southwestern China, about from Zhaotong. It was especially felt in the province of Yunnan, and less in the provinces of

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...

and

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

The magnitude of the earthquake was 6.1 on the moment magnitude scale, with an intensity of up to VII (''Very strong'') on the

Mercalli intensity scale The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...

. The quake was the result of a

strike-slip 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 ...

fault, whose fault plane has a southwest-northeast strike. Seismicity in this region of southeast Asia is the direct result of the orogenic activity of the Himalayan mountain belt. Due to the complex interaction between the

Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

and

Indo-Australian Plate The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the continent of Australia and the surrounding ocean and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and the adjacent waters. It was formed by the fusion of the Indian an ...

from Afghanistan in the west to Burma and China in the east, many shallow sub-surface faults are present in both southwest China and neighbouring

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

Recent earthquakes

This particular part of Yunnan Province was struck by the M_w 6.3 Burma earthquake in 2003. Similar events have occurred in recent years due to strike-slip faulting in the nearby vicinity, such as the 7.7 1988 Lancang earthquake, the 2006 Yunnan earthquake of magnitude 5.0, which killed 19 people, the largest of recent times, the M_w 7.9 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which killed over 69,000 people, the M_w 6.9 2011 Shan earthquake, and more recently, the 2012 Yunnan earthquakes, which was the result of

reverse 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 ...

ing and not strike-slip faulting like the Ludian earthquake, killing 81 people and injuring 821 others.

Damage and casualties

The earthquake caused significant damage in the immediate vicinity of the epicenter, principally in the city of Zhaotong, where power outages and significant structural damage were reported. Chinese authorities announced that the quake left at least 391 dead, and over 1,801 injured. According to the ''

South China Morning Post The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained ...

'', the tremor was felt in nearby towns, including the capital of Yunnan, Kunming, also in Chongqing, Leshan and Chengdu in the neighboring province of Sichuan. Road access to Longquan Village (龙泉村) of Longtoushan Town (龙头山镇), Ludian County, was blocked, where buildings collapsed. In Ludian, it was reported that around 12,000 homes had collapsed, many of them being aged brick structures.

Aftershock

Aftershock: 3 August 6:00 a.m. until 9 UTC in times or more (more than nine times more than M 3.0) up by China Seismic Bureau). The largest aftershock earthquake M 4.2.

Response and relief

Mourning held in Baogunao for victims in Ludian earthquake

The

Chinese government The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, mili ...

sent a 30-man team to the epicentre region immediately after the earthquake struck, as well as 2,000 tents, 3,000 folding beds, 3,000 quilts, and 3,000 coats to provide shelter for the displaced and homeless. The majority of the injured have been transported to safe areas. Chinese Premier

Li Keqiang Li Keqiang (born 1 July 1955) is a Chinese politician who is the outgoing premier of China. An economist by profession, Li is head of China's executive branch as well as one of the leading figures behind China's Financial and Economic Affai ...

, who flew to the epicenter on the morning of 4 August, sent a joint working group to investigate and assist the locals in the rescue.

Donation

As of 17:00 (

UTC+8 UTC+08:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +08:00. With an estimated population of 1.708 billion living within the time zone, roughly 24% of the world population, it is the most populous time zone in the world, as well as a ...

) on 15 August 2014, Yunnan Province received 536 million Yuan in donated money and 50 million Yuan in donated goods.云南省级共接收鲁甸6.5级地震捐款5.36亿元
/ref>

Government and organizations

Company

Personal

References

External links

* * {{Earthquakes in 2014 Ludian Ludian Earthquakes in Yunnan Geography of Zhaotong Strike-slip earthquakes