Society
Aftershocks may hit Northwest after Yushu earthquake
By Yan Jie (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-15 07:50
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BEIJING - More aftershocks with magnitudes as big as 6.0 may hit Northwest China in the wake of a giant earthquake that rocked the area on Wednesday morning, Chinese seismologists predicted.
At 7:49 am on Wednesday, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Yushu county of Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Qinghai province, setting off a series of major aftershocks that measured up to 6.3.
"We cannot rule out the occurrence of another strong aftershock with a magnitude of around 6," Liu Jie, director of the forecasting department of the China Earthquake Networks Center, said on Wednesday.
The spate of earthquakes signaled that China's mainland could have entered a "relatively active" seismic period, he said.
The Chinese mainland has not seen any earthquake as big as 6 magnitudes between August 2009 and April 2010, CEA's records show.
The latest period of strong seismic activities in China's mainland was during 2008, when an 8 magnitude earthquake flattened an area around Wenchuan county in the Southwest China's Sichuan province in May that year, leaving about 88,000 dead or missing.
The Yushu quake also added to a string of remarkable earth movements worldwide, said Sun Shihong, a chief forecaster with the China Earthquake Networks Center, referring to the recent deadly earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.
"The levels of seismic activities worldwide are relatively high with regard to their frequencies and magnitudes," he said.
According to the Institute of Geology of the CEA, the Yushu earthquake created an estimated ground rupture of 46 km in length and an average movement of 1 meter as a result.
At 5:39 am, more than two hours before the major quake, the earthquake administration in Qinghai province recorded a minor 4.7 magnitude tremor almost at the same location, Liu told China Daily.
The provincial administration published its record of the earthquake on its official website on Wednesday morning.
"They (officials with the Qinghai provincial earthquake administration) thought the first quake was unusual, as the area had not logged any obvious earthquakes for quite a long time," Liu said.
However, even though provincial administration authorities found the tremor abnormal, they were not sure whether more earthquakes would follow, Liu said.
CHINA DAILY
