Abstract
AN earthquake of considerable severity occurred in the south-west of China at about noon (Chinese time) on Aug. 14, and was registered by seismographs throughout the world. From the records at six observatories, the officials of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey place the epicentre in about lat. 27° N., long. 103° E. (Wire Report of Science Service, Washington, D.C., Aug. 16). This point lies near the northern boundary of the province of Yunnan, about seven hundred miles to the south of the province of Kansu, in which the destructive earthquakes of 1920 and 1927 occurred. Kansu is a thickly populated province, and it is possible that some thousands of lives may have been lost, though weeks may elapse before news reaches us from the central district. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, it has been visited by twenty disastrous earthquakes, by one of the latest of which, in 1888, about five thousand persons were killed. According to Mr. N. F. Drake (Amer. Seis. Soc. Bull., vol. 2, pp. 40.-91; 1912), the province of Yunnan is one of the most important earthquake districts of China. He represents the relative seismicities of the four principal districts—Fukien, Kansu, Chihli, and Yunnan—by the numbers 100, 98, 94, and 91.
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The Chinese Earthquake of Aug. 14. Nature 130, 394 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130394c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130394c0