All the earthquakes in China... ?

Question

Can someone tell me excatley how many earthquakes/after shocks China has had this year?

I keep hearing about all these earthquakes on news blogs but can't really grasp the magnitude of them. And have they all been in Sichuan Province? Why does this keep happening?

Answer 1

They happen in Sichuan Province because it lies on a major fault line, then big earthquakes happen it can take years for the after shocks to die down.

The USA has a lot of earthquakes too. Look at the USA quake centre map of North USA.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/rece...

All the quakes you see are on the major fault line that runs through the USA. Its only a matter of time before a big one happen in the USA again.

As for quakes in Asia the below link is for activity

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/rece...

Compared to the USA map there is a lot less activily.

Maps give details of quakes in the last 7 days.

Answer 2

probably everyday there're earthquakes, but most of them are under M4.0, so you can't feel it.

And nope, they're almost everywhere, not just in Sichuan

Answer 3

If there were not so much media attention to all of these events, you would not hear so much about them.  Two hundred years ago, it would not have made the news at all.  But even with all the news coverage, these Chinese quakes were small potatoes compared to the quake off of Indonesia that caused the super tidal wave a few years ago. I can not begin to spell tsunami.  

Answer 4

The only major earthquake was the one that hit in May, and this one that hit recently did not kill many people, but it did damage a lot of homes.

The earthquakes occur because southwestern China is located on the Eurasian Plate where the Indian Plate is moving towards/under. This is also what creates the Himalaya Mountain range. Most earthquakes (and volcanoes) are due to tectonic activity. This is most likely what is going on with these earthquakes.

Answer 5

There's afew more minor ones to come but it's not gonna be like the May's Sichuan Quake

Answer 6

The earthquakes and Olympic Games  just show 2008 is a big year but  not a fortunate year to Chinese people.