An earthquake of magnitude 5.9 hit the Gansu – Qinghai province, the North Central region of China, killing over 100 people on December 18, 2023.
The earthquake, which occurred at a depth of 10 km, formed in an intraplate region, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Intraplate earthquakes are rare and they happen far from the boundaries between plates.
At least 158,000 residents may have felt strong shaking and another 117,000 people likely felt very strong shaking. The USGS reported that the quake occurred on the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau.
“This whole region is deforming due to the collision between the Indian and Eurasian plates,” Judith Hubbard, visiting assistant professor at Cornell University, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The USGS issued a yellow alert for fatalities for the December 18 event, where the estimated fatalities range from 1 – 99. As for economic losses, the USGS issued a red alert as it expects extensive damage. Estimated economic losses are less than 1 percent of China’s gross domestic product, it added.
“Buildings here are vulnerable to earthquake shaking,” Wendy Bohon, a geologist who studies earthquakes, wrote on X. The predominant vulnerable building types are adobe block and unreinforced brick with mud construction.
India, too, experienced 10 earthquakes on December 18 and 19, six of which occurred in Kishtwar, a town in Jammu and Kashmir, according to the National Centre for Seismology. The magnitudes ranged between 2.9 and 4.8.
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