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1981 Dawu earthquake

Earthquake in China

Field	Value
title	1981 Dawu earthquake
timestamp	1981-01-23 21:13:50
isc-event	633084
anss-url	iscgem633084
local-date
local-time	05:13:50 CST
map2	{{Location map	China Sichuan
lat	30.93
long	101.10
mark	Bullseye1.png
marksize	40
position	top
width	250
float	right
caption	}}
magnitude	6.8
location
type	Strike-slip
countries affected	Sichuan, China
casualties	About 150 dead; roughly 300 injured
intensity

| isc-event = 633084 | anss-url = iscgem633084 | local-date = | local-time = 05:13:50 CST The 1981 Dawu earthquake occurred on 24 January at 5:13 a.m. CST, in Sichuan, China. Registering a surface-wave magnitude of 6.8, the earthquake killed about 150 people and injured roughly 300 more. It caused comprehensive damage within close range of its epicenter.

Background

China has an extensive history of catastrophic earthquakes that ranges back to 1290. The first verified earthquake took place in Chih-li, killing roughly 100,000 people. The next great earthquake was probably the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake, the most devastating earthquake of all time. Roughly 830,000 were killed by the event. Other earthquakes in 1917, 1918, 1920, 1923, 1925, 1927, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1948, 1950, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1976 each killed at least one thousand people. Since 1981, earthquake fatalities have diminished greatly, though have not been stopped. As recently as 2008, an earthquake in Sichuan killed nearly 90,000 people.

Characteristics

The epicenter was pinpointed to Dawu County in Sichuan. Its official magnitude was 6.8 and its surface wave magnitude reached 6.6.

A moderately well controlled focal mechanism indicates that the earthquake was probably a result of left lateral strike-slip faulting A 44 km surface rupture has been reported for the 1981 earthquake.

Damage and casualties

The earthquake killed roughly 150 people and 300 or so were injured. Damage was considerable, but limited to a small zone around the area.

References

"M 6.8 – 131 km NW of Kangding, China – Impact". United States Geological Survey.
(23 November 2009). "Historic World Earthquakes – China". United States Geological Survey.
(5 January 2010). "Significant Earthquakes of the World – 1981". United States Geological Survey.
Zhang, Q.. (2003). "Earthquake triggering and delaying caused by fault interaction on Xianshuihe fault belt, southwestern China". Acta Seismologica Sinica.
(February 2019). "Source processes of large earthquakes along the Xianshuihe Fault in southwestern China". Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1981-earthquakes 1981-disasters-in-china earthquakes-in-sichuan

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