Deaths	Homeless	Magnitude
Grey: 1-9 Blue: 10-99 Green: 100-999 Orange: 1,000-9,999 Red: 10,000-99,999	Underline: 100-999 Italic: 1,000-9999 Underline & Italic: 10,000-99,999 Underline&Italic & !: 100,000-999,999	Boldface:  7.0-7.9 BOLDFACE & CAPS: 8.0-8.9

Only earthquakes which caused at least 1 death, 100 people homeless, or were 7.0+ on the Richter scale are displayed in the above table.

Abbreviations:
 

A = Archaepelago Papua NG = Papua New Guinea New Z. = New Zealand Afgh. = Afghanistan Sov. = Soviet Union Phillip. = Phillipines Az = Azerbarjan Bang = Bangladesh El Salv. = El Salvador Domin. R. = Dominican Republic

Is = Island S = Sea Mari. = Mariana Islands Loyal. = Loyalty Islands Macq. = Macquarie Islands Sandw. = Sandwich Islands Solom. = Solomon Islands S. Cruz = Santa Cruz Islands Ascen. = Ascension Islands Mid-Atl = Mid-atlantic Ocean Atl-Ind = Atlantic-Indian ridge

To see more information on each year of earthquakes, click the year link on the left column.

Some things to note:

• There's a lot more significant earthquakes than one might recollect from memory!
• In the grand scheme of things, places like California are not as deadly as when compared to places like Iran, Turkey, China, Indonesia, and Japan.  The Pacific "Ring of Fire" is called that for a reason!
• The most powerful earthquakes are usually not the most deadly or destructive.  One major reason for this is because the parts of the world which are most prone to major earthquakes - e.g. Vanuatu - are, strangely enough, quite sparsely inhabited by humans.
• The deadliest and most destructive earthquakes happen in densely populated areas.  In the past, earthquakes that only hit sparsely populated areas may have passed completely undetected.
• On average we get about 2-3 significant earthquakes a month.  Some months clearly have more earthquakes than others, but this is entirely explained by random chance.  In fact, if we always had 2-3 earthquakes each month, that would be extremely non-random behaviour.  According to the laws of probability, the proportion of months with n events is given (assuming perfect randomness) by the Poisson distribution formula exp(-mu) mu^n/n!, where mu=2.46 is the mean.  Here's how the theory compares with the data for 1980-1999 [figures may not add due to rounding]:

Why does it feel like there are more earthquakes now than in the past?  There are several reasons:

• Live video coverage.  Strange as it may seem nowadays, there once was a time when disasters around the world were not instantly covered by CNN crews beaming in their live graphic images via satellite.  Instead, the daily news would content itself with a thirty-second piece such as "[Abstract graphic of Iran and an earthquake in background].  An earthquake of magnitude 7.0 on the Richter scale has struck Iran, killing at least 100 people and leaving 1000 homeless. Authorities are still searching for survivors.  [Background graphic changes].  Local news now, and a two-year old boy has...".  This type of news rarely sticks to memory for more than a day or two, unless the viewer actually knows someone from the affected country.
• The rise of the Pacific Rim.  As you can see from the above table, a large proportion of earthquakes happen on the so-called Pacific "ring of fire", one of the most tectonically active regions in the world.  In recent years, this region has been generally experiencing a rapid growth in population, infrastructure, and economic power.  This means that (a) earthquakes here are more likely to hit heavily populated, built up areas than before; (b) the infrastructure is now good enough to get journalists quickly to the affected areas; and (c) news from this region is more important to Western countries than ever before.  The net result of these factors is that coverage of the earthquakes in this region has increased dramatically, and has penetrated deeper into the conscious memory of Western viewers.  Also, building practices in the Pacific Rim are of uneven quality, and this can often exacerbate the destruction.
• The end of the Cold War.  Strange as it may seem nowadays, there used to be many countries around the world (nearly half the world's population, in fact) who were quite hostile to Western journalists, and quite secretive about their internal affairs.  As such, news of earthquakes from these countries would often be limited to official announcements from the government, which would often downplay causalty and damage reports, and prohibit any pictures of the affected area.
• Better technology.  It's only since the 1980s that we've really had a global network capable of catching earthquakes anywhere in the world, including the deep oceans and the polar regions.  For instance, it was only in the 1960s that we first detected an earthquake in Antartica, though surely there were countless earthquakes prior to this in that region that we simply were unable to measure.
• Public interest in disasters.  The popular media is often derided for lack of substance and character, but by and large it is simply giving the public what it wants the most.  Currently, natural disasters, crime, war, and anything hinting of millennial apocalypse are very popular with the viewing public (as opposed to, say, congressional budget debates).  Media coverage priorities have shifted accordingly.
• Current lack of an acute crisis.   At this time of writing (November 1999), there is no major war, scandal, or acute crisis in the world to absorb our attention.  (There is no shortage of chronic crises, of course, but it is human nature not to dwell on these after a while).   During more exciting times, mere natural disasters from distant parts of the world don't have a chance to consciously be retained in memory.  When the next crisis strikes,  news of distant earthquakes will again be squeezed out of the media and out of people's thoughts.
• Fading memory.  Memory of even the deadliest earthquakes fade quickly if they didn't happen to a place you knew.  Who still remembers the Jan 1999 Columbia earthquake that killed 1000?  Or the July 1998 earthquake and tsunami in Papua New Guinea that killed 2000?

For more information on earthquakes, there's no better resource than the USGS National Earthquake Information Center.

Last modified: November 10, 1999.