1038 Dingxiang earthquake
earthquake in China
The 1038 Dingxiang earthquake devastated present-day Shanxi Province, northern China on 9 January. At least 32,300 people died across the province when the Ms 7.25 earthquake struck Dingxiang and Xinxian counties. In Xinzhou, about 19,742 people died and 5,655 were injured. More than 50,000 livestock also perished. About 759 were killed in Guoxian County and in present-day Taiyuan, 1,890 people died.
Geology
The Xizhoushan Fault Zone, a strike-slip fault system within the Shanxi Rift System, may have been responsible for the earthquake. Field studies indicate at least three earthquakes occurred along the fault during the Holocene with the most recent event possibly being the 1038 earthquake. This fault delineates the Xizhoushan Mountains and Xinding basin within the rift system. Estimates of the right-lateral slip rate range from 5.86–5.22 mm (0.231–0.206 in) per year to as low as 2 mm (0.079 in) per year during the Holocene. At least 60 km (37 mi) of surface rupture along the fault was associated with the earthquake.
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This entry incorporates text from “1038 Dingxiang earthquake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.