China has an extensive history of catastrophic earthquakes that ranges back to 1290 . The first verified earthquake took place in Chih-li , killing roughly 100,000 people . The next great earthquake was probably the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake , the most devastating earthquake of all time . Roughly 830,000 were killed by the event . Other earthquakes in 1917 , 1918 , 1920 , 1923 , 1925 , 1927 , 1931 , 1932 , 1933 , 1948 , 1950 , 1966 , 1969 , 1970 , 1974 , 1975 , 1976 each killed at least one thousand people . Since 1981 , earthquake fatalities have diminished greatly , though have not been stopped . As recently as 2008 , an earthquake in Sichuan killed nearly 90,000 people
an earthquake in Sichuan
2008 Sichuan earthquake
1981 Dawu earthquake