1 post tagged “plate tectonics”
China’s southwestern region has some major faults, and off its coast the Pacific Plate is jamming itself beneath the continental crust of China as well as the Philippines Plate, which is also cramming itself beneath China. Between the Pacific Plate and the Philippines Plate lays the Mariana Trench, the deepest trench in the ocean. This all means, lots of tectonic activity, lots of stuff moving around and lots of stress building up. Which means, now and then to relieve the stress, earthquake.
Last night while people were sleeping in the US, morning time UK while people were rising for work, an earthquake struck in Sichuan Province, southwestern China. It buried 900 students beneath their school, among others. The death toll at this time for the province, is 8,500 people.
It registered 7.8 on the Richter Scale, according to the USGS. Its epicenter was ten kilometers deep (6.2 miles). Over 900 miles away in Beijing, people felt the shaking. In Shanghai, skyscrapers swayed like leaves in the wind. People in Thailand, Vietnam and Pakistan felt it.
The deadliest recorded earthquake China has suffered killed nearly a quarter of a million people in 1976 (updated May 13; was orginally reported 1978, figure taken from an AP report).
