The Shaanxi earthquake is considered to be the deadliest recorded earthquake, in which about 830,000 people died and an area of 840 kilometers wide was destroyed.
Reported damages included 20 meter deep crevices. Effects were felt as far as 500 kilometers away from the epicenter. Landslides also occurred and caused great destruction. The earthquake damaged many historical monuments and monuments.
Permanent deformation occurred. Plains had lowered and risen are still like that today. For example, The shaking reduced the height of the Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an from 45 meters to 43.4 meters.
Fires were on for several days and the people lived in the open air. Many robberies and lootings happened. Numerous people died of the earthquake, the fire, the flood and robberies. Many of the towns reported ground fissures with water gushing out
In Huaxian, "city walls, temples, offices and civilian houses were demolished, without a single wall left standing.... The ground fissured and sunk. Water gushed out and formed canals. Sixty percent of the people (several tens of thousands were killed or injured."
In Weinan [15 miles (24 km) west of Huaxian], "city walls, temples, storehouses, offices and civilian houses collapsed totally.... In the city, the ground sunk for more than 3 meters. Fifty percent of the people were killed.(Anonymous)"
The scholar Qin Keda survived the earthquake and recorded details about it. One of the conclusions 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 in it may still be kept intact." This may indicate that many people were killed trying to flee while some who stayed put may have survived(Anonymous).
Millions of people at the time lived in artificial caves on high cliffs in the area of the Loess Plateau. The soft clay had formed in millions of years due to wind blowing silt to the area from the Gobi Desert. Loess is easily eroded by 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 buildings called Yaodongs in these cliffs. The landslides easily destroyed these Yaodongs and those whom lived in them.
Modern estimates give the earthquake a magnitude of approximately 8 on the moment magnitude scale or XI on the Mercalli scale. While it was the most deadly earthquake and the third deadliest natural disaster in history, there have been earthquakes with considerably higher magnitudes. Though this is still considered the most deadly because of the death toll.
Citation
Anonymous. The Deadliest Earthquake of all times. b [cited 9/30/2009 2009]. Available from http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Deadliest-Earthquake-of-all-times.
References
Clark, George. Natural Disasters. Kendall Hunt Pub Co, August 2002.
Anonymou. schina virtual museums_quake. a [cited 9/30/2009 2009]. Available from http://www.kepu.net.cn/english/quake/ruins/rns03.html.
Anonymous. The Deadliest Earthquake of all times. b [cited 9/30/2009 2009]. Available from http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Deadliest-Earthquake-of-all-times.
Anonymous. The Earthquake. c [cited 9/30/2009 2009]. Available from http://deathwish546.tripod.com/id1.html.
