Earthquakes near Jiuquan through history

The deadliest was not the strongest: an estimated magnitude 7.3 on July 12, 1609 (Gansu: Jiuquan), for which NOAA records 840 deaths. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 5 here, back to AD 180. NOAA records deaths in 4 of the events here, 1,153 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.5 on December 14, 2002 (Gansu Province: Yumne). NOAA’s record here begins in September 180 with an earthquake (Gansu Province).

• December 14, 2002Earthquake · M 5.5Gansu Province: Yumne · 2 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• December 25, 1932Earthquake · M 7.8108 km WSW of Laojunmiao, China · 275 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• July 12, 1609Earthquake · M 7.3 (est.)Gansu: Jiuquan · 840 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• September 180Earthquake · M 7.5 (est.)Gansu ProvinceNOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Jiuquan 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