"There will be famines and earthquakes in various
places." - Matthew 24:7
Every year, earthquakes cause thousands of deaths, either directly
or due to the resulting tsunamis, landslides, fires, and famines.
- 3,000 people died in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
- Around 110,000 were killed in the 1948 earthquake in Ashgabat,
Turkmenistan.
- More than 5,700 deaths were reported following the strongest
earthquake ever recorded in 1960 in Southern Chile.
- While only 15 people died in the 1964 Prince William Sound in
Alaska quake itself, 110 more people were killed in the resulting tsunami.
- 66,000 were killed off the western coast of South America in the
1970 Peru earthquake.
- Between 250,000 and 655,000 died in the 1976 China earthquake
that struck Tangshan, then a city of one million people.
- 63 people were killed in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake -- which
struck the San Francisco area.
- 60 people were killed in the 1994 Northridge quake in Southern
California.
- More than 5,000 were killed the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake.
- 230,000 (and perhaps as many as 290,000) people in 12 countries
-- including about 168,000 in Indonesia alone were killed in the 2004
earthquake just off the west coast of the island of Sumatra, and the tsunami
that followed.
- More than 80,000 people were killed in the 2005 Pakistan
earthquake.
- More than 69,000 people died in the 2008 Sichuan China
earthquake.