The 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake occurred on 8 August 2017, in

Zhangzha Town Zhangzha (), formerly Jiuzhaigou (), is a township-level division under Jiuzhaigou County, Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China, with an area of , and a permanent population of 13,593 as of 2020. History In 199 ...

Jiuzhaigou County Jiuzhaigou County (; ) is a county of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. Formerly called Nanping County (), it was renamed in 1998 to reflect the fact that the Jiuzhaigou Va ...

Ngawa Prefecture Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, also known as Aba (; Qiang: ; ), is an autonomous prefecture of northwestern Sichuan, bordering Gansu to the north and northeast and Qinghai to the northwest. Its seat is in Barkam, and it has an ar ...

Sichuan Province 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 ...

, China. The earthquake was registered at 7.0 and killed at least 25 people in the mountainous region of northern Sichuan.

Earthquake

The earthquake struck at 21:19:46

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,

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 8 August 2017 in

() with magnitude 7.0. Cities as far away as

Lanzhou Lanzhou (, ; ) is the capital and largest city of Gansu Province in Northwest China. Located on the banks of the Yellow River, it is a key regional transportation hub, connecting areas further west by rail to the eastern half of the country. H ...

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...

and

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by #Name, other names, is the list of capitals in China, capital of Shaanxi, Shaanxi Province. A Sub-provincial division#Sub-provincial municipalities, sub-provincial city o ...

felt the quake. The epicenter was 39 kilometres from the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

, 66 kilometres from

Songpan County Songpan; former Songzhou, is a county of northwestern Sichuan province, China, and is one of the 13 counties administered by the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. It has an area of , and a population of approximately 68,000 composed o ...

, 83 kilometres from Zhouqu County, 90 kilometres from

Zoigê County Ruoergai County or Zoigê County (; ) is a county of Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, China, bordering Gansu to the north. It is the northernmost county of the province. It is part of the Tibetan traditional region of Amdo. ...

, 105 kilometres from Longnan City, and 285 kilometres from

Chengdu City Chengdu (, ; simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), alternatively romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which serves as the capital of the Chinese province ...

Setting

Northern

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 ...

lies in an area with high tectonic activity. In this region, the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...

abuts against the

Yangtze Plate The Yangtze Plate, also called the South China Block or the South China Subplate, comprises the bulk of southern China. It is separated on the east from the Okinawa Plate by a rift that forms the Okinawa Trough which is a back-arc basin, on the so ...

with immense pressure forming faults along the edges. Jiuzhaigou County is located in the

Min Mountains Min Mountains or Minshan () are a mountain range in central China. It runs in the general north-south direction through northern Sichuan (the eastern part of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and adjacent areas of Mianyang Prefect ...

, a range that was formed at the intersection of these faults. The devastating

1879 Gansu earthquake The 1879 Gansu earthquake occurred at about 04:00 local time on 1 July. It had an estimated magnitude of 8.0 on the scale and a maximum perceived intensity of XI (''Extreme'') on the Mercalli intensity scale. The epicenter was in Wudu District in ...

had its epicenter approximately to the east of where the 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake occurred. The mountainous areas to the south of Jiuzhaigou County were the epicenter of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that resulted in tens of thousands of fatalities. The Jiuzhaigou earthquake did not correlate with any of the known active faults. Field investigation and remote sensing of the surface effects of the earthquake (

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 the ...

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated grade (slope), slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of ...

s) permitted the identification of a previously-unknown active fault segment.

Impacts

According an

isoseismal map In seismology, an isoseismal map is used to show lines of equally felt seismic intensity, generally measured on the Modified Mercalli scale. Such maps help to identify earthquake epicenters, particularly where no instrumental records exist, such as ...

produced by 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 ...

, the seismic intensity could be higher than level IX, and the earthquake epicentre in Zhangzha County could reach level VIII. The earthquake triggered at least 1,883 landslides, most of which were shallow rock slides, debris slides and rock falls that occurred close to the road network. After the earthquake, the entire

completely suffered a

power failure A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...

. The eyewitnesses found that some buildings had fallen off in Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area. The staff of the Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area told the correspondent from

Xinhua News Agency Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...

that in the fourth ditch of the Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area a house had collapsed and cracked, and the locals were stepping up to evacuate people.

Rescue

The

put up a Level I reaction, changing to Level II afterwards, and sent troops to the earthquake area for rescue. At 21:26 CST (

)
Health and Family Planning Commission of Sichuan Province
started an emergency plan, and the medical rescue team was going to head to the earthquake area within one hour. The

Red Cross Society of China The Red Cross Society of China () is the national Red Cross Society in the People's Republic of China. Origins and history before 1949 The Red Cross Society of China was founded as the Shanghai International Red Cross Committee on March 10, 19 ...

, Sichuan Branch was on emergency standby, preparing for rescue. In the small hours the next day, China's State Council Earthquake relief headquarters established national level II earthquake emergency response. At 06:20 CST on 9 August, a Shuajingsi Town (刷经寺镇) militia vehicle had a traffic collision to a Sichuan F (

Deyang Deyang () is a prefecture-level city of Sichuan province, China. Deyang is a largely industrial city, with companies such as China National Erzhong Group and Dongfang Electric having major operations there. The city is rich in history, with the Sa ...

) coach in

Hongyuan County Gakog (Hongyuan) County ( or ; ) is a county in the north of Sichuan, Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. There is a river called ''Ka Chu/Gaqu'' () in the area and ''kog' ...

. 3 people from the coach were injured and were being medically treated. Until 9 August 2017, there were 40 people critically injured, 7 of whom were transferred to other hospitals, 4 to West China Hospital of

Sichuan University Sichuan University (SCU) is a National university, national National Key Universities, key public university, public research university in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. The university is wholly funded by Ministry of Education of the People's Republic ...

, and the rest to Jiuzhaigou County Hospital and Zhongzang Hospital.

Casualties

The Emergency Management Office of the

announced that until 13:10 CST on 9 August, the 7.0-magnitude earthquake in

killed 19 people and injured 247 people, including 40 people critically injured. The following day, the death toll rose to 20 with over 400 injured. Deaths and injuries mainly occurred in

Aftershocks

As of 10 August 2017 10:00 CST (UTC+8), 1,741 aftershocks had occurred, including 30 major ones. Some experts predicted that the aftershocks might reach a magnitude of 6 after several days. The major aftershocks reported by

China Earthquake Networks Center The China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC; ) is an institution under 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 ...

are listed below:

Notes

References

External links

* * {{Portal bar, China 2017 disasters in China 2017 earthquakes August 2017 events in China Earthquakes in Sichuan