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Basic information about Sichuan Earthquake (What Happened? (It happened in…
Basic information about Sichuan Earthquake
Where
Sichuan/Wenchuan
The epicentre is located near the city of Dujiangyan
about 50 miles (80 km) west-northwest of Chengdu
When
The local time is 14:28 in the afternoon
May 12 2008
magnitude 7.9 quake, 8 measured as Chinese
Why/How
Caused by the collision of two tectonic plates which is Indian-Australian and Eurasian plates
Compressional forces sheared the ground of two locations along the fault
along the 155-mile- (249-km-) long Longmenshan Fault
From the broken buildings, we can see from the three seismic waves: pressure, shear and surface waves
What Happened?
It happened in a mid-afternoon when classes are teaching.
Schools and universities are continuing regularly while the staffs and professors just returned from lunch break. And the Sichuan working day is in a normal full swing.
About 8 kilometres away the populated city of Chengdu, 19km down the earth, the fault cracked and broke over the length of 240 kilometres.
Nothing was prepared for the citizens of Sichuan and also the neighbouring countries. The two minutes of the shake was the most devastated and tragic moment.
This memorial time is called the "Wenchuan moment"
Xuankou middle school was 55 kilometres away from the epicentre. 55 people were killed and 43 of them were students. The school is preserved as a memorial site.