According to the China Earthquake Networks Center, Zizhong County, a rural area in Sichuan province’s Neijiang prefecture, has recorded 23 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater in eight days, including four that exceeded magnitude 4.0. The sustained cluster has drawn attention to seismic activity reported across multiple Chinese regions during the same period, with data released through state-run channels.
Zizhong County records 23 quakes in eight days
The sequence began on the evening of April 10 and had produced 23 quakes of magnitude 3.0 or above by the morning of April 17, according to data published by China’s state-run Earthquake Networks Center. The largest, a magnitude 4.4 tremor, struck at 6:22 a.m. on April 17 and was followed within the hour by two additional quakes, a 4.0 and a 3.3, all at focal depths between six and seven kilometers.
The Earthquake Networks Center’s catalog shows that the area within 200 kilometers of Zizhong’s epicenter has recorded 212 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater over the past five years. The strongest in that window was a magnitude 6.0 quake that struck Luzhou, in Sichuan’s Luzhou prefecture, on Sept. 16, 2021, roughly 68 kilometers from Zizhong’s current epicenter.
By April 17, Zizhong had already logged four separate tremors before midday.
Xinjiang and Chongqing record simultaneous tremors
The Sichuan cluster is the most concentrated seismic event in recent weeks, occurring alongside activity reported in other parts of the country.
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In the far northwestern region of Xinjiang, a magnitude 3.1 quake struck Kuqa city in Aksu prefecture at 8:06 a.m. on April 17, at a focal depth of 14 kilometers. A day earlier, on April 16, a magnitude 3.3 quake hit Yuli County in Xinjiang’s Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, at a depth of 20 kilometers. Zizhong recorded four additional quakes on April 16 and two on April 15.
Three days before that, on April 14, a magnitude 3.1 earthquake struck Tongliang District in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, centered at 29.61 degrees north and 106.07 degrees east, at a focal depth of eight kilometers. April 14 was one of the more active single days in the recent period: seven quakes were recorded across the country, including a magnitude 3.6 tremor in Baicheng County, Aksu prefecture, Xinjiang, at a focal depth of 12 kilometers. Zizhong contributed five of those seven events on the same day.
The geographic spread, from Xinjiang in the northwest to Chongqing in the southwest to Sichuan in the center, corresponds to tectonic activity along and around the eastern margins of the Tibetan Plateau, one of the most seismically active zones in East Asia.
China recorded 690 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater in 2025
China’s Earthquake Networks Center reported that the mainland recorded 690 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or above throughout 2025. Two of those reached the 6.0-to-6.9 range. The most powerful was a magnitude 6.8 quake, with some estimates placing it at 7.1, that struck Dingri County in Shigatse, Tibet, on Jan. 7, 2025, at a focal depth of 10 kilometers. By Jan. 9, the death toll had reached 126, with 350 people injured on the Chinese side of the border. Thirteen people in Nepal were also injured.
The Tibet quake was the largest to hit China since May 2021 and produced the highest death toll since the Jishishan earthquake in Gansu province in December 2023.
In terms of earthquake frequency by region, Xinjiang led the country in 2025, followed by Tibet, Sichuan, and Yunnan.
