Earthquakes near Zigong through history

It was also the deadliest: NOAA records 1,800 deaths for it. NOAA’s list of significant earthquakes has 10 here, back to 27 BCE. NOAA records deaths in 8 of the events here, 1,860 in all. The latest on NOAA’s list is a magnitude 5.4 on September 15, 2021 (52 km SE of Neijiang, China). NOAA’s record here begins in 27 BCE with an earthquake (Sichuan: Yibin). It grows thinner going back: 6 of the 10 significant earthquakes NOAA lists here are from 1927 on.

• September 15, 2021Earthquake · M 5.452 km SE of Neijiang, China · 3 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI · Wikipedia
• July 30, 1917Earthquake · M 7.042 km W of Xunchang, China · 1,800 deaths (NOAA)USGS · NOAA NCEI
• February 14, 1896Earthquake · M 5.8 (est.)Sichuan Province: Fushun · 26 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI
• 27 BCEEarthquake · M 5.5 (est.)Sichuan: Yibin · 13 deaths (NOAA)NOAA NCEI

• An event counts for Zigong 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