Shaanxi Earthquake
Wei River Valley, Shaanxi China, 1556
The Shaanxi Earthquake, 1556
On January 23rd, 1556, one of the worlds biggest natural disasters occurred in Wei River Valley, Shaanix province in China. About 820,000-830,000 people died. The earthquake was so big it affected 7 other provinces. (Shanxi, Gansu, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu.) Some provinces lost 60% of their population. They say that the earthquake was about an 8 on the moment magnitude scale.
Damage due to the Shaanxi Earthquake
Destruction of the earthquake
Wei River Valley is near Huaxian, Weinan, and Huayin and those are some of the cities that the Shaanxi Earthquake affected the most. In Huaxian, every single building was destroyed and they lost more than half of the residents living there. (Death toll averaging in the hundreds of thousands.) The Shaanxi earthquake affected places more than 310 miles away. In Weinan and Huayin, crevices more than 66 feet deep crevices opened. There was destruction everywhere.