December 17, 1962 Earthquake: Ningxia, China
A magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck Ningxia, China on December 17, 1962 at 09:36:01 UTC.
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
- December 17, 1962
- Time
- 09:36:01 UTC
- Place
- Ningxia, China
- Magnitude
- 5.5 (Ms)
- Intensity
- 7 on the Modified Mercalli scale
- Tsunami
- None recorded
- Epicenter
- 38.120° N, 106.270° E
- Country
- China
The toll
- Damage
- Limited (under about $1 million)
- Houses destroyed
- Few (about 1 to 50)
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.
December 7, 1962, 17:36:01 local time, Lingwu and Wuzhong, Ningxia Autonomous Region, 38 deg 07 min N, 106 deg 16 min E, magnitude 5.5, intensity VII.
Wuzhong: More than 20 weak houses collapsed. 80% of the houses fissured.
Lingwu: A few old mud houses collapsed. 11 mud houses collapsed, few enclosing walls toppled down and most cracked about 1-3 cm wide in Guanqukou, 10 km south of the county. The Taizi Temple and its doorway were damaged.
Jinji: Two millsheds collapsed. Some walls of lavatory
and enclosures fell.
Ningshuo: Mud houses with no columns cracked in the region near Wuzhong. Some old houses and sheds collapsed.
Yinchuan: There were small fissures on a few worn out
walls. There were also fissures on the vault of the gymnasium.
The shock was felt in Zhongning, Qingtongxia, Helen, Pingluo (the old fissures were expanded on the walls of the meeting room of agricultural department), Baofeng (the walls of lavatory fell down in the veterinary station), Guyuan and
Zhongwei in Ningxia Autonomous Region; Sanshenggong
in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region; Hengshan in Shaanxi Province.
(above from reference #3939)
Other significant earthquakes nearby
Within 200 km, the deadliest first.
- December 16, 1920, Gansu Province, Shanxi Province, China
- January 3, 1739, Ningxia, China
- October 25, 1622, Pingliang, Longde, Ningxia, China
- April 1143, Ningxia, China
- October 14, 1709, Ningxia, China
- July 25, 1561, E of Zhongwei, Ningxia, China
- May 26, 1852, Ningxia, China
- November 21, 1748, Ningxia, China
- January 3, 1988, Lingwu, China
- July 1227, Ningxia, China
- January 2, 2025, Ningxia, China
- July 14, 876, Qingtongxia, Ningxia, China
- April 10, 1495, Zhongwei, Ningxia, China
- February 15, 1627, Ningxia, China
- April 14, 1982, Gansu Province, China
More
Significant earthquakes of 1962The 1900sEvery quake the USGS located in 1962Recent earthquakes near hereThis 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 8067.