1556 Shaanxi earthquake
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The Shaanxi earthquake or Hua County Earthquake is the deadliest earthquake on record, killing approximately 830,000 people. It occurred on the morning of 14 February 1556 in China. There is some dispute about the date it occurred - dates including 2 February and 23 January have also been suggested. More than 97 counties in the provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Gansu, Hebei, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Anhui were affected [1]. A 520-mile area was destroyed and in some counties, sixty percent of the population was killed [2]. Most of the population at the time lived in artificial caves in loess cliffs, many of which collapsed during the disaster.
The Emperor at the time was Jiajing of the Ming dynasty.
Modern estimates give the earthquake a moment magnitude of approximately 8. While it is the most deadly earthquake, it is not the highest magnitude for an earthquake. Aftershocks continued several times a month for half a year [3]. The epicenter was in Hua county near Mount Hua in Shaanxi (Latitude 34.5, Longitude 109.7). It is also among the deadliest natural disasters in history, only outstripped by floods of China's Yellow River (Huang He).
The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake, however, was not the deadliest experience to the Chinese people. For instance, there were tens of millions of Chinese deaths during the Three Years of Natural Disasters from 1959 to 1961.
