Earthquakes near Chuxiong through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: a magnitude 7.1 on January 4, 1970 (22 km SSW of Yuxi, China), for which NOAA records 15,621 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 10 here, back to 1680. NOAA records deaths in 6 of the events here, 25,299 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 4.8 on February 25, 2010 (Yunnan Province). NOAA’s record here begins on September 9, 1680 with an earthquake (Yunnan Province). It grows thinner going back: 7 of the 10 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on.

• February 25, 2010Earthquake · M 4.8Yunnan ProvinceNOAA NCEI
• January 4, 1970Earthquake · M 7.122 km SSW of Yuxi, China · 15,621 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• September 6, 1833Earthquake · M 8.0 (est.)Yunnan Province · 6,700 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• September 9, 1680Earthquake · M 6.8 (est.)Yunnan Province · 2,700 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Chuxiong when it began within 100 km of its centre, or 200 km for an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more. Damage can reach further.
• USGS counts here start at magnitude 6: the catalogue’s smaller quakes thin out going back, where few instruments listened.
• NOAA lists significant events only: earthquakes that killed, did about $1 million of damage, reached magnitude 7.5 or intensity X, or raised a tsunami, and eruptions and tsunamis by like measures. Magnitudes before 1900 are its estimates from written accounts.
• Deaths are NOAA’s total for each event, wherever people died, its tsunami and fires included. A tsunami counts the dead its runup records give for this place: NOAA’s total for a tsunami includes its source quake’s.
• A tsunami from elsewhere counts where one of its runups killed or rose a metre or more.
• Counted to October 19, 2026, as is the map. The last 30 days ask USGS again.

How the layers work, where their data comes from and what they can’t tell you: Earthquakes, live, The world through history