A strong shock of earthquake Of magnitude 6.0 hit China at 1.44pm (local time, 8.44am in Italy) today, December 4th. According to what was recorded by INGV, the epicenter was located in the Xinjiang region, in the county of Akqi, about 138 km from the city of Tumxukwhich has a population of 135,000 inhabitants. The hypocenter, however, was barely detected 9 km deep. As is often the case, the first provisional estimates are slightly different: the USGS (United States Geological Survey) reported a magnitude of 5.8 and a depth of 10km. The CENC (China Earthquake Networks Center) still reported a magnitude of 6.0.
According to what was reported by some local newspapers, the tremor was felt up to 300 km away from the epicentre, with most of the reports come from Almaty in Kazakhstan, a metropolis with over 2 million inhabitants and which is located 270 km from the epicentre. Since it was an earthquake high magnitude and occurred at a shallow depthhad a widespread impact. As highlighted by the EMSC seismological center, the duration of the earthquake would have been almost 2 minutes.
At the moment, there is no news on any damage to people or things and information has been obtained from Chinese state bodies difficult.
From a geological point of view, it is one area of high seismicityas seen in the map below: the reason is linked to the presence of the mountain system ofHimalayasformed due to the collision between the Indian and Eurasian plates. In particular, the sliding of the Indian plate beneath the Eurasian one is the cause of these numerous earthquakes.
Article being updated.
