Shallow Magnitude 5.0 Quake Near Longchang, Sichuan Triggers GDACS Orange Alert

A shallow preliminary earthquake struck near Longchang in China’s Sichuan province on Friday afternoon, prompting the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System, or GDACS, to issue an orange alert for possible humanitarian impact. There were no authoritative early reports of deaths, injuries or major damage from Chinese officials or initial local media bulletins.

GDACS said the quake occurred at 05:13:35 UTC, or 1:13 p.m. in Beijing, and measured it at magnitude 5.0 at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). It placed the epicenter at 29.2752 degrees north latitude and 105.229 degrees east longitude. Chinese media reports citing the China Earthquake Networks Center, the country’s official seismic monitoring agency, said the quake struck near Longchang in Neijiang, Sichuan, at roughly 29.25N and 105.21E. CENC’s automatic early reading put the event at about magnitude 4.9, a preliminary estimate that can differ slightly from other agencies’ measurements in the immediate aftermath.

GDACS issued an orange rapid alert and said the earthquake could have “medium humanitarian impact.” On its event page, the system estimated that about 300,000 people were exposed to MMI VI shaking, a level generally described as strong shaking that can be felt by everyone in the area and may cause light to moderate damage in vulnerable buildings.

Sichuan is one of China’s most seismically active regions, and even moderate quakes there draw close scrutiny from authorities and international monitoring agencies because the province has a history of damaging earthquakes. The quake’s shallow depth also matters: shallower earthquakes can produce stronger shaking near the epicenter than deeper events of similar magnitude.

As of the reporting reflected in early bulletins, neither CENC, provincial emergency authorities nor the first Chinese media notices had published casualty, injury or major damage figures. The initial Chinese reports, based on CENC’s automatic determination, were brief and did not report injuries or fatalities.

Earthquake measurements and impact estimates often change as more data becomes available, especially in the first hours after a tremor. For now, the publicly available information points to a shallow, moderate quake that triggered international concern alerts but had not, as of early Friday, produced any confirmed official toll.