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The earthquake in Jiuzhaigou County of Northern Sichuan, China on August 8, 2017

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Abstract

Jiuzhai Valley National Park in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of northern Sichuan, China, is well renowned both at home and abroad as “World Natural Heritage,” “Man and Biosphere Conservation Network” and “National GeoPark of China.” An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck Jiuzhaigou County on the evening of August 8, 2017. Its focal depth was 20 km and followed thousands of aftershocks. The earthquake had affected 17 townships and 120 villages in varying degrees. By the 8 p.m. on August 13, the death toll of the earthquake reached 25, with 525 injured. Being formerly described as “Fairy tale world,” “King of waterscape,” the beautiful scenic spot now had become “scars of wounds strung together like beads,” and some of the beauty even disappeared. In this short communication, the incident background, casualties and scene are presented. Moreover, a brief investigation on the cause and seismic damage capacity of the earthquake as well as the earthquake early warning is conducted.

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Fig. 1

Modified from “Why is the Sichuan earthquake so frequent?” in National Geographic. Source: http://www.nationalgeographic.com.cn/

Fig. 2

Source: China Earthquake Networks Center http://www.cenc.ac.cn/

Fig. 3

Sources: http://www.chinanews.com/ and http://www.people.com.cn/

Fig. 4

Sources: http://www.xinhuanet.com/, http://www.chinanews.com/ and China Earthquake Administration http://www.cea.gov.cn/

Fig. 5

Sources: http://news.cctv.com/, http://www.chinanews.com/ and http://www.people.com.cn/

Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Source: http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yRwKxoggFYgCdsiClOXYRQ

Fig. 8

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by the Special Fund for Basic Scientific Research of Central Colleges of Chang’an University (No. 310821153312). The authors wish to thank Dr. Lu and his team of Tsinghua University for providing seismic data and technical support during this brief investigation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an, 710048, China

    Hao Lei

  2. School of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an, 710064, China

    Hao Lei, Xiuling Wang, Hang Hou, Linjian Su & Deqiang Yu

  3. Department of Civil and Environment Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Hao Wang

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  1. Hao Lei
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  2. Xiuling Wang
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  3. Hang Hou
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  4. Linjian Su
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  5. Deqiang Yu
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  6. Hao Wang
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Correspondence to Xiuling Wang.

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Lei, H., Wang, X., Hou, H. et al. The earthquake in Jiuzhaigou County of Northern Sichuan, China on August 8, 2017. Nat Hazards 90, 1021–1030 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-3064-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-3064-3

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