A Chinese earthquake database for casualty modelling

In order to conduct empirical casualty modelling in China, Chinese historical earthquake events is the essential basis. However, commonly used casualty databases that focus on Chinese earthquakes and provide comprehensive information rarely exist. Regarding this situation, we derived an earthquake casualty database of Mainland China from authorized Chinese published data sources. The casualty database records 520 earthquake events with magnitude 5.0 and greater where at least one casualty is recorded in the time span from 186 BC through December 2011. Each earthquake case contains information on seismic parameters, deaths tolls, number of heavy injuries and light injuries, as well as areas and population of affected regions from intensity VI to intensity IV. Compared with PAGER-CAT, this casualty database provides 146 unique earthquake events and provides more detailed information on heavy injuries and light injures, as well as areas and exposure population of affected regions. This casualty database is an essential supplement for global casualty databases and provides a basis for earthquake casualty modelling on post-earthquake risk estimation in China.