July 12, 1609 Earthquake: Jiuquan, Gansu, China

Name: July 12, 1609 Earthquake: Jiuquan, Gansu, China
Start: 1609-07-12
Location: Jiuquan, Gansu, China

July 12, 1609 · M7.3 · 840 deaths

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Jiuquan, Gansu, China on July 12, 1609. It killed 840 people.

Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date: July 12, 1609
Place: Jiuquan, Gansu, China
Magnitude: 7.3 (Ms)
Intensity: 10 on the Modified Mercalli scale
Tsunami: None recorded
Epicenter: 39.200° N, 99.000° E
Country: China

The toll

Deaths: 840
Damage: Severe (about $5 to $25 million)
Houses destroyed: Many (101 to 1,000)

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

July 12, 1609, southeast of Jiuquan, Gansu Province, 39.2 N, 99 E, magnitude 7.25, intensity X.

Hongyapu and Qingshuipu (southeast of Jiuquan):

About 435 km enclosing mud walls were rased

(another record said about 7 km). There were landslides in Nanshang mountain area. Taolai and other rivers stopped flowing for several days.

Ground fissured in Dongguan. About 840 people

were killed.

Jiuquan: City walls, buildings, temples and walls

collapsed with people killed.

Gaotai: People were thrown off balance, boats got

loose from mooring and walls shook.

Since then the earthquake kept occurring 1-2 times a

year until 1617.

Note: Hongyapu is about 60 km southwest of Gaotai

County (now), near Qingshuipu.

(above from reference #3939)

Reference #1055 lists July 13, 1609, China (Kansu), Kanchou Fu, more than 840 lives lost; (Chehkiang), Tungkuan in Shaohsing Fu, the land opened for a length of 870 li, about 310 miles.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

Significant earthquakes of 1609 The 1600s Recent earthquakes near here This day in weather history

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-09-24. NCEI earthquake 844.