Several strong historical earthquakes during Ming and Qing Dynasties and their effects to local reconstruction at Southern Shanxi Province, North China: Insight from the Chinese literature

Abstract

The dissection of related Chinese literature of historical strong earthquakes is very important for formulating effective disaster mitigation measures. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties (AD 1368–1910) in North China, there were three strong earthquakes (AD 1556 Huaxian M 8.25 earthquake, AD 1695 Linfen M 7.75 earthquake and AD 1815 Pinglu M 6.75 earthquake), caused great damages to local cities of southern Shanxi Province, including damages of various types of buildings, numerous casualties, while the society and economy suffered a sudden heavy blow. Meanwhile, the occurrence of these earthquakes also provides important opportunities to restore the regional social order. In addition to the support of national disaster relief policies, the local officials actively organized people to cope with the disasters, made every effort to reconstruct the cities, that reflected the feelings of "caring about People's livelihood" or "the principle of supremacy of life", to improve the efficiency of regional social order benign operation. Certainly, the recovery and reconstruction process after the three strong earthquakes reflected imbalance between different time, regions, and between urban and rural areas. The literature review in this article has certain reference significance for the formulation and improvement of current disaster reduction measures.