We don't know what happened yesterday, but two seismic monitoring stations ­ some 1300 miles apart ­ both reported an 8.6 earthquake in China. Maybe it was a weapons test. However, a large magnitude temblor struck in nearly this same location (36.50ºN, 105.70ºE) on December 12, 1920. The Haiyuan quake killed 200,000 people, caused landslides and collapsed thousands of homes. Various magnitudes were reported for this temblor ranging from 7.8 to 8.5. Aftershocks shook the country for three years following. Below are two screen snapshots from reporting stations that still show an earthquake occurred. The INSF is from Switzerland and Red Puma is from Romania.

