Earthquake Disaster And Disaster Management In Gansu Province In Qing Dynasty

Earthquake Disasters and Recovery of Stricken Areas in Gansu Province During the Qing DynastyNatural calamities hit the district of Gansu province repeatedly throughout the record of history. In Qing Dynasty, Gansu was attacked frequently by the disasters of the Flood drought locust earthquake and hail. According to the "general history" china disaster statistics,The drought occurred625times, Gansu has had36;flood a total of1581times; Gansu33;The earthquake occurred609times, Gansu54. Disaster of Gansu earthquake is more serious, in the54times, there are two8grade earthquake. The paper focus on the three earthquakes broke in Gansu during the Qing Dynasty, including Tianshui earthquake on June8th of Chinese calendar in1654, Tongwei earthquake on May21st of Chinese calendar in1718and Wudu earthquake on May12th of Chinese calendar in1879. These earthquakes not only damaged the local society of Gansu deeply, but also made far-reaching influence on the development of local economy. To overcome the sudden attacks, the central government, the local government and the civil organizations adopted series of positive measures. The paper makes a comprehensive and clear analyzation in the disaster extent, the far-reaching influence and the disaster recovery measures to give beneficial reference for today’s earthquake relief and social response in Gansu, quoting the official records, the local chronicles and the personal poetry notes. The paper is made up of three parts:Part I introduction. This part introduces the present research advancements for the mentioned three earthquakes in Gansu during the Qing Dynasty. Due to the choice of perspectives, there were plenty of study achievements about the epicenters, magnitudes, seismogenic structures, geological structures, intensity distributions and the disaster types for these earthquakes, but fewer findings for Gansu’s earthquake recovery measures during the Qing Dynasty in which this paper will further the research. The paper also chooses the reigns of ShunZhi, KangXi and GuangXu in the Qing Dynasty separately, and targets Gansu as the studying scope. In addition, also explained why choose these three earthquakes.Part II introduces the details of the three earthquakes, analyzing the particular disaster situations, the positions, the heavy stricken areas with the specific layers and discussing the disaster relief measurements from the central government, the local governments to the civil society. The paper argues that the relief measurements initiated by the local government were relatively timely but stressed upon the preservation of the social orders and the reconstruction of the public facilities, while the civil relief measurements were detailed, comprehensive and pertinent but lacked for the unstable level, limited relief channels and limited objects. The paper convinced that the relief measurements of all the levels were corresponding and complementary.Part III summarizes the common characters of the three earthquakes, the multiple varieties of earthquakes, the extraordinarily heavily damage of the buildings and the relatively fewer deaths. The paper argues these disasters’ influence on the local society from the short-term influence including the injuries and deaths, the damage levels of the buildings, the grain prices and the social safety, to the long-term influence including the local spread of the epidemic disease, the deep impact on the local economy, the government credibility and the education.Part IV summarizes the above parts and analyzes the social relief measurements to discuss the work efficiency for the Qing government to deal with such big and unexpected earthquake disasters. This part also demonstrates and values the relief policies and the governmental relief efficiency backgrounding the whole recovery system of the Qing Dynasty, consisted of its earlier stage as Shunzhi reign, Kangxi reign, and its later stage as Guangxu reign.Conclusion is for the periodical summary and illustration. The paper discusses the serious defects of the social relief system as the participators, the measurements, the procedure for the earthquake disasters in Gansu during the Qing Dynasty. The investigation for the relief measurements of the central government, local government and civil organizations in the earthquake disasters in Gansu during the Qing Dynasty is helpful for the comprehensive understanding of the historic events. The paper also argues that the earthquakes aggravated the social crisis in Gansu province during the Qing Dynasty, while the deficiency of the relief system and the recession of the nation power could result in the degradation of the social relief capability thus raise the risk of the aggravating disaster condition.