On January 23, 1556, the deadliest earthquake on record struck. The Shaanxi earthquake was a catastrophic earthquake, killing approximately 830,000 people. It occurred in the morning in 1556 during the Ming Dynasty. More than 97 counties in the provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Gansu, Hebei, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Anhui were affected. An 840-kilometre-wide (520 mi) area was destroyed, and in some counties as much as 60% of the population was killed. Most of the population in the area at the time lived in yaodongs, artificial caves in loess cliffs, many of which collapsed with catastrophic loss of life. Aftershocks continued several times a month for half a year. The scholar Qin Keda lived through the earthquake and recorded details. One conclusion he drew was that at the very beginning of an earthquake, people indoors should not go out immediately. Just crouch down and wait. Even if the nest has collapsed, some eggs may remain intact. Millions of people at the time lived in artificial Loess caves on high cliffs in the area of the Loess Plateau. Loess is the name for the silty soil that windstorms deposited on the plateau over the ages. The soft loess clay had formed over thousands of years due to wind blowing silt into the area from the Gobi Desert. Loess is a highly erosion-prone soil that is susceptible to the forces of wind and water. The Loess Plateau and its dusty soil cover almost all of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces and parts of others. Much of the population lived in dwellings called yaodongs in these cliffs. This was the major contributing factor to the huge death toll. The earthquake caused landslides, which destroyed the caves.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 23:43:59 +0000
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