1556
Cave houses dug into the soft loess of Shanxi province, the kind of homes that collapsed in 1556.Image: Meier&Poehlmann · CC BY 3.0world · Asia
The deadliest earthquake on record strikes northern China
In the Wei River valley of Ming China, millions of people lived in yaodong, cave homes cut into the soft, wind-laid soil called loess. They were warm in winter and cool in summer, but they could not stand a great earthquake. Early on 23 January 1556 an earthquake of perhaps magnitude 8 struck Shaanxi and neighbouring Shanxi province. The cave homes collapsed on their sleeping families, landslides buried villages and fires burned for days. About 830,000 people are believed to have died, the highest toll of any earthquake in recorded history.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Shaanxi province earthquake of 1556 ↗
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