A Primary Study On Earthquakes Of Sichuan District In Ming Dynasty

Historical disaster is an important research issue in history; while historical earthquake research is an important aspect of the historical disaster researches. The research object of the present thesis, Sichuan province, lies in the centre of southwest, China. Within the territory of Sichuan, the natural landform diversified and the local terrain changeable, which make it a frequent place where earthquake takes place. In recent years, great loss towards the nation and the people had been caused because of Wenchuan earthquake. Moreover, the safety of people’s lives and property is serious threatened. Therefore academic circle pays more and more attention to earthquake disasters and more and more researches on this issue appeared. However, the research on earthquake disasters of Sichuan in Ming dynasty is comparatively few. Hence the present thesis tries to analyze and research the distribution of time and space of all the earthquakes happened in Sichuan during Ming dynasty comprehensively and systematically based on the collection and analysis of historical materials, so as to supplement the insufficiency of the current research; lead to more further studies on this issue and provide some references for disaster prevention and reduction nowadays.The present thesis is composed of four chapters.Chapter one illustrates the purposes and significance of the thesis, makes a literature review, points out the limitations of the present study and the aspects which need to be paid attention to in this research.Furthermore, the research methodology and difficult points are clarified. In the end, relevant concepts adopted in this thesis are defined.Chapter two mainly categorized the intensity and level standards of the earthquakes of Sichuan in Ming dynasty on the basis of the research contents and related materials. Then parametric basis is given for time and space distribution research of earthquake disasters. Besides, the earthquake disaster grade division standards before are introduced to serve as references for the grade division standards of the present thesis.Chapter three considers mainly on the time and space dimensions research of earthquake disasters in Sichuan province of Ming dynasty. In this chapter, the respective time characteristics and spatial distribution regularity of the dynamic evolution process are analyzed so as to draw some rules of earthquake disasters, respectively. Finally, reasons for the frequent occurrences of earthquakes of Sichuan in Ming dynasty are given.Chapter four is mainly on the characteristics and influences of the Sichuan earthquake disasters in Ming dynasty, which lead to the conclusion that earthquake disasters in Sichuan area of Ming dynasty were frequent, the influential areas were huge and aftershocks were many, the sudden earthquake spread to a wide range and occurred at night, the destructive and derivative secondary disasters appeared a lot so on and so forth. Earthquakes also affected the economic, politic, military order and the psychology of the residents of the disaster areas to some extent.The last part is the conclusion, the main research contents of this paper are summarized. Taking history as a mirror, the preliminary study on the earthquake disaster area in Sichuan, and puts forward some suggestions on the social relief work.