M 5.4 in China on 15 Sep 2021 20:33 UTC

Event summary

This earthquake can have a medium humanitarian impact based on the magnitude and the affected population and their vulnerability.

GDACS ID EQ 1285804
Earthquake Magnitude: 5.4M
Glide number: EQ-2021-000141-CHN
Depth: 10 Km
Lat/Lon: 29.2165 , 105.4067
Event Date: 15 Sep 2021 20:33 UTC
16 Sep 2021 04:33 Local
Exposed Population: About 37000 people in MMI
40 thousand (in MMI>=VII)
Inserted at: 15 Sep 2021 20:52 UTC
INFORM Coping capacity:
3.6 (China)

GDACS Score

For more info on GDACS alert score click here.
  Earthquake
(Shakemap)		 GDACS score
NEIC 1.7 1.7
us7000fbky Scaled population (raster) 3.33  
  C1 shakemap -0.37  
  C2 shakemap 0.76  
  Country Vulnerability 0  
  INFORM_normalised 0.82  
Maximum expected impact using different data sources.
Virtual OSOCC
Meteo assessment
Satellite products
Analytical products
China - Earthquake (ECHO 16 Sep 2021)Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:39

  • An earthquake of 5.4 M (6.0 M as reported by the China Earthquake Networks Centre - CENC) at a depth of 10 km occurred in southeastern Sichuan Province on 15 September at 20.33 UTC (16 September at 4.33 local time). The epicentre was located 36 km north-northwest of Luzhou City (Lu County, Sichuan Province).
  • Up to 15,000 people were exposed to very strong shaking and up to 372,000 to strong shaking.
  • According to the Ministry of Emergency Management of the People's Republic of China, two people have died, 60 others have been injured (three seriously injured) and several houses have been damaged.
  • National authorities deployed emergency teams over the affected area. 
China - Earthquake, update (ECHO 17 Sep 2021)Fri, 17 Sep 2021 12:24

  • Following the earthquake of 5.4 M that occurred in southeastern Sichuan Province on 15 September, the amount of casualties and damage has increased.
  • According to the Ministry of Emergency Management of the People's Republic of China, three people have died, 100 have been injured and 121,000 affected (the majority of them in the Luzhou City area). In addition, 1,400 houses have collapsed and more than 35,000 have been damaged.
  • National authorities launched a three-level earthquake emergency response and deployed rescue and emergency teams over the affected area.
Detailed event map. European Union, 2026. Map produced by EC-JRC.
The boundaries and the names shown on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the European Union.

Updates on volcanic activity (Smithsonian)

Estimated casualties (PAGER)

USGS estimates the number of casualties for each earthquake for the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) product.
The graph shows the current fatalities estimate.

Exposed population

Data, images, links, services and documents

For this events, GDACS has links to information from the following sources: EC-JRC (48), NEIC (4), OCHA (1), WMO (1), USGS (5), (2), INFORM (2),