Water project reveals ruins of remote earthquake

Chinese scientists have found evidence of a powerful earthquake that shook central China's Henan Province more than 3,000 years ago, the earliest tremor known in Chinese history.

Carbon-14 dating of samples taken from Xuecun village in Henan's Xingyang City indicated the earthquake struck the area sometime between 1500 B.C. and 1260 B.C., long before seismological records became available in 843 B.C..

Signs of the quake were first found in 2005 in seriously-damaged ashpits, residences and graves that lay buried under Xuecun Village. But scientists published their findings for the first time, nine years later, at an ongoing exhibition of archeological findings along the ambitious south-to-north water diversion route in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province.

The newly confirmed quake was estimated to measure 6.8 to 7.1 on the Richter scale, said Chu Xiaolong, associate researcher with Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology, on Thursday.

Chu witnessed the entire process of excavation and paleoseismic research over the past nine years.

Chu and his colleagues spent at least five years at construction sites of the water diversion project, hoping to find and provide timely protection of any cultural relics unearthed along the route.

In Henan Province, the water project included digging underground canals to pipe a massive 9.5 billion cubic meters of Yangtze River water from the south to the arid Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Provinces.

At the end of 2005, Chu and his colleagues found fault lines and rifts of different lengths, widths and depths. "These were found under the earth's surface, drilling through ruins of ancient homes, wells and graves that dated back to the Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago," said Chu.

He reported the finding to the local seismological administration, but many experts believed the faults and rifts were simply ancient irrigation ditches.

In 2006, a research project was launched by experts from Peking University. Their research, however, progressed slowly as excavation was halted from time to time to make way for the water project.

Further excavation of a 20,000-square-meter area over the years produced more rifts and cracks. Many ancient ashpits and wells had been torn apart by these faults.

Scientists also found a human skeleton, whose upper part was stuck in one rift, but whose pelvis and legbones were found in a pit 1.5 meters away.

"The skeleton couldn't have been damaged by human force," said Chu. "It had been apparently torn apart under the impact of the quake."

Underneath the cracked ground of Xuecun Village, scientists also found intact skeletons of cattle, pigs and other domestic animals, and assumed people had buried them alive in a sacrifice during a post-quake prayer for peace.

Prof. Xia Zhengkai, a noted seismologist from Peking University, said the finding had filled a gap in China's earthquake research in the remote Shang Dynasty, which lasted from the 16th to 11th century B.C.

"Quakes were prone in many parts of China throughout history," said Xia. "Before this buried quake was unveiled, our earliest records of earthquakes dated back to 843 B.C."

Prior to the discovery in Henan, experts believed a 7.0-Magnitude earthquake was the first major quake disaster to be recorded in the Chinese history. The quake, which hit today's Shaanxi Province in northwest China, was described in history books as having "drained rivers and toppled mountains".