Early Monday morning, Sichuan Province, a mostly mountainous area in southwestern China, experienced a magnitude 5.29 quake, which is considered “moderate” by earthquake severity standards, and authorities there have warned of the impact in one of the nation’s seismically most active regions.
The earthquake came shallowly, at a depth of only 10 kilometres (6.2 miles), the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences said in a statement. Emergency officials were tracking both damage and loss of life and no immediate reports of damage or loss of life were received at the time of report compilation.
The province of Sichuan is located on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau and is one of the most earthquake prone regions in China as a result of the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates.
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It has been hit by a number of devastating earthquakes in the last 20 years, with the most recent devastating earthquake being in 2008: The Wenchuan earthquake, which struck people by killing nearly 70,000, injuring many hundreds of thousands, and displacing many millions, one of the deadliest natural disasters that modern Chinese history has ever recorded.
The tremor on Monday was much weaker than earlier big quakes, but seismologists say it can still result in some damage to building structures and trigger landslides, especially in the mountainous region of Sichuan.
Rapid assessments of structures (buildings, roads and critical infrastructure) are usually undertaken by the emergency management agencies shortly after a disaster before deciding whether additional disaster response actions are needed.
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The local authorities in China have a very comprehensive earthquake monitoring system and have established a rapid emergency response system, and they often arrange rescue troops and earthquake security inspectors after medium-sized and large earthquakes. Aftershocks may happen hours or even days after the main event and residents are often advised to alert for potential aftershocks in the affected areas.
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