Talk:1556 Shaanxi earthquake

message: List_of_earthquakes has: 1201, Upper Egypt or Syria 1,100,000 deaths. But no details. If this is true, the Shanxi earthquake would only rank as the second most devastating natural disaster on record. dab (ᛏ) 12:23, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right.  A lot of places say the Shanxi earthquake is the most deadly, however the NGDC does list the Egypt quake as 1.1M deaths . The USGS does not have that quake on their list, though, which might be the reason why. --Plutor 12:41, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The upper Egypt and Syria one used to be in Guiness, but was taken off. I think after investigation it turned out that it was a cluster of Earthquakes in 1201 that did the damage rather than a single earthquake plus aftershocks. Or some such, I remember one issue of Guinness had a note about why they removed it.--T. Anthony 18:58, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes. i believe you are right. ~Meldshal42 17:28, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Most devastating?

message: Are there any other big earthquakes that happened in Shaanxi?  Because currently, Shaanxi earthquake redirects here, wouldn't Shaanxi earthquake be a better place for the article? - Hahnchen 16:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I just found a message at a chinese forum site which listed some other earthquakes that happened c.750, c.1300 at Shaanxi, but I dont think theyre commonly known ones. darn it ive lost the thread but it was at   Astrokey44 05:33, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As an unnamed event, the correct name should be "1556 Shaanxi earthquake" or possibly "Shaanxi earthquake of 1556" (compare to 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, 2005 Pakistan earthquake, etc.).  "Shaanxi Earthquake" is quite incorrect since "Earthquake" should not be capitalized.  The rename is trivial, but unfortunately only an admin can do it because redirects already exist at all of those locations (except "Shaanxi earthquake of 1556", but that one's unnecessarily verbose IMO). Jdorje 23:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible Move? 

message: I did a bit of research on Google Print, and here's an academic source which talks about the Shaanxi earthquake:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0442251912/
All the reports are the same-- 830000 deaths, 8.3 Richter scale-- which makes me think they are drawing from a single, 20th century academic source, which itself draws from a single Chinese primary source. Ashibaka (tock) 23:43, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thats how it seems looking at the google results, I had thought alot of them had come from wikipedia. Theres about 50 different sources that say almost exactly the same thing! Astrokey44 05:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Source to look at

message: removed "Mao-Tse-Tung, for example, personally claimed to be responsible for the deaths of over 60 million people." and replaced it with a sentence about the Three Years of Natural Disasters Astrokey44 22:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Some one must have put it back in, I agree that this paragraph should be removed, I don't see how it adds to the article and it smacks of a politcal agenda, even with in it's modified state. An article about thhe Tunguska event would not say, "No one was killed by the meteorite, however 25 million Russians died in the Great Patriotic War." MarcusGraly 17:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  mao 

message: I put it as a stub, because it still is.  It's just 3 short paragraphs.  Needs lots of improvment.
--Weirdperson11 21:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thing is theres almost no detailed info about it on the net. Ive been looking round and I think every scrap of info about the quake now on the net is in this article. Really need someone to find a book about it at a library.  Astrokey44 23:26, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The book I suggested is available at many local libraries, but it seems nobody has gone to take a look. (Personally, I have work to do :) ) Ashibaka (tock) 21:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

text: see http://print.google.com/print?q=shaanxi+earthquake&hl=en --Jiang 03:04, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: thanks for that, I did find a quote from the 'annals of china' which I added to the article. Astrokey44 03:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, excellent work! This is probably all the collaboration nominator was after. Ashibaka (tock) 04:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, now its longer, thanks for the Google Print stuff.  It does help a lot. --Weirdperson11 20:16, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still a stub 

message: I've been thinking it would be good to come up with an appropriate outline for this article.  Maybe that will help get things rolling and help organize thoughts.  So, based loosely on 2005 Kashmir earthquake, I've come up with a proposed outline:
----
(Intro paragraph)
The earthquake
Information about tectonic plates colliding, approximate epicenter location, aftershocks, etc. Was this one big earthquake or a series of earthquakes? (This section is scientific explanation/description of the earthquake.)
Casualties
Here we detail how many died as a direct result of the earthquake. How many died as an indirect result of the earthquake? Address differing reports on the death toll. A little Information about the loess caves (more detailed info in the Damage section).  Any information about numbers injured who survived, if available. Information about rescues (if available).  (This section is about how people were effected.)
Damage
Here, information about damage and destruction should be included/detailed.  More details about the loess caves.  Including the stone classics, steles, Small Wild Goose Pagoda, etc.  If known, how did this effect commerce, government, etc.?  Is it true that we cannot estimate the damage in monetary terms?
References
All references, including websites, should be listed here.
External links
----
--RobbyPrather (talk) 15:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed outline 

message: The article says "A 520-mile area was destroyed". This is nonsense. Mile is not a unit of area. Thue | talk 13:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is still there.  is 520 miles the radius of destruction?  Also, I don't think the area was destroyed, rather the infrastructure of that area. Kdammers (talk) 04:08, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Unit of area

message: I don't known the protocol with Wikipedia in regard to tranliterations of Chinese words, however the US Geological Survey lists this earthquake as the "Shensi" of January 23, 1556.  Not listing this word anywhere in the article keeps it from appearing when one googles the name listed by the USGS.  See http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/world/most_destructive.php Theophilus Reed (talk) 01:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ten years later, but perhaps someone else will have the same question: "Shensi" is the old transliteration of the Chinese name, and Shaanxi the new version. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:27, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Also called "Shensi"

message: There is a tag in the lead that needs to be fixed.
Removed tag per no sources, unnecessary tag anyway. ~Meldshal42 17:25, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I boldly delisted this article, as I don't believe that the proper process was followed. It seems to be a conflict of interest to ask someone to nominate the article so that you can review it (see here). I don't believe the review was sufficient, as there are still obvious problems that need to be fixed before it's ready for GA status. I will leave this as a GA nominee, but I don't believe the next review should be performed by the same editor. GaryColemanFan (talk) 01:53, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Review 

message: Hello,
I just want to know what magnitude scale was used to measure this earthquake (e.g. richter's, moment of magnitude...)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.103.104.252 (talk) 21:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Magnitude scale in use? 

message: I have just edited the article to clean up the grammar and remove two possible instances of vandalism by abunchofnumbers. I have edited the sentence
The soft loess clay had formed huricans in millions of years due to wind blowing silt to the area from the Gobi Desert.
to 
The soft loess clay had formed over millions of years due to wind blowing silt into the area from the Gobi Desert.
"Huricans" does not appear to be a word, but I have very little familiarity with technical terms used in the field of geology, so if there was some nuance that my edit destroyed please feel free to restore the intended meaning. - Greenmango (talk) 03:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing phrase 

message: During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
* http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=DE1sZaC__4cC&dq=Annals+of+China+earthquakes&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3DAnnals%2Bof%2BChina%2Bearthquakes&lpg=PA100&pg=PA100&sig=bqvSZN0qsNiAqiQJoRNI61cpTn4
** In 1556 Shaanxi earthquake on 2011-05-23 03:35:18, 404 Not Found
** In 1556 Shaanxi earthquake on 2011-06-20 05:24:57, 404 Not Found
--JeffGBot (talk) 05:25, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead link 

message: During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
* http://www.silkroadguide.com/xian/xian7.htm
** In 1556 Shaanxi earthquake on 2011-05-23 03:35:17, 404 Not Found
** In 1556 Shaanxi earthquake on 2011-06-20 05:25:02, 404 Not Found
--JeffGBot (talk) 05:25, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead link 2 

message: Regarding:
:.
I deem this source to be unreliable. The material for which it is cited might be true, but the sources Eaton cites (particularly notes 1 and 2, the Encyclopedia Britannica and an archived USGS page, resp.) do not support the content. (The Google Books link does not include the endnotes for Chapter 12, but they were kindly supplied  .) The content there (like the rest of the"History in 50" series) appears to be scraped off the Internet with very shallow sourcing (such as Wikipedia). (For a humorous interlude see this cartoon about where citations come from.)
[Splitting off the rest of this discussion as we have transcended this particular source. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:45, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the reliability of "A History of Civilization in 50 Disasters" 

message: In support of the death toll and other details of the 1556 Shaanxi (Huaxian) earthquake, this article (and also 1976 Tangshan earthquake, 1556 in science, and Lists of earthquakes) uses the citation: 
* . 
Quite aside from the defects of the citation itself (missing the author, title, and page range of the paper), there is a problem with the source: I have not found a copy for verification. I am therefore tagging it.  If anyone can find a copy (see Resource Request [archived]) please let me know. Even better would be other authoritative sources, but it appears those are in Chinese. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:25, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  IAEG source not available 

message: The changes made recently to the article were unexplained. One of the citations did not appear to link anywhere and I have been unable to find a paper that matches the details given. For this reason I have reverted these changes until a complete citation appears. Mikenorton (talk) 00:05, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Notwithstanding the discussion further up this page, I have changed the death toll back to 830,000 as that is what the cited sources say. Mikenorton (talk) 14:39, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: It doesn't make much sense to have a present-day political map to show a Ming dynasty event, which, on top of that, contradicts the Wikipedia policy of neutrality. It unnecessarily expresses a standpoint manifested in many due to biased media and disregards the official policies by the UN and the governments of some 180 countries, a modern problem. Please leave that out of here. Administrative divisions are well documented by the Ming court and maps certainly available.--91.142.213.109 (talk) 20:24, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Part of the purpose of such a map is to show the areas that were affected by the earthquake in their modern context, which has nothing to do with neutrality policy. If you are willing to create a map based on the sources that you mention for the provinces during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor, then that would be useful, none appear to be available on Commons. Mikenorton (talk) 11:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical map 

message: Appears to be used in recent sources including: (2018)--Prisencolin (talk) 17:46, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I checked google in general, Google Scholar and Google Books. "1556 Shensi earthquake" is occasionally used but far less than "1556 Shaanxi earthquake" as far as I can see. If we do want to include it as an alternative title it should appear in full as 1556 Shensi earthquake, rather than as an alternative to the place name within the title. Mikenorton (talk) 19:45, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Shensi" earthquake 

message: A recent change was made to the death toll, to a much lower figure, which I reverted. I suggest that we discuss this here before making such a drastic change. Mikenorton (talk) 14:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds like a reasonable approach. My suggestion would be, rewording things slightly, "The direct deaths from the earthquake were probably a little over 100,000, while a little over 700,000 migrated away or died from famine and plagues, which summed up to a total loss of 830,000 people in Imperial records." Mikenorton (talk) 16:19, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer to drop the word probably in "probably a little over 100,000" to keep a consistent degree of uncertainty with the second figure "a little over 700,000". Or I can add "probably" for both figures.-- love.wh 03:17, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I think add "probably" to both. Mikenorton (talk) 19:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death toll again