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List of earthquakes

The following is a list of serious earthquakes:

Date	Site	Losses	Magnitude in Richter	Comments
226 BC	Rhodes, Greece	?	–	Destroyed Colossus of Rhodes and city of Kameiros[?]
365	Cyrene, Libya	?	–
526 - May 20	Antiochia, Syria	250,000	–
856	Corynth, Greece	45,000	–
1268	Cilicia, Asia Minor	60,000	–
1290 - September 27	Chihli[?], China	100,000	–
1556 - January 23	Shaanxi and Kansu, China	850,000	9.0	The most devastating earthquake in history
1667 - November 23	Caucaso[?] and Shemakha[?], Italy	80,000	–
1692 - June 7	Port Royal, Jamaica	1,000-3,000	–	Destroyed and submerged most of Port Royal; see that article for more.
1693 - January 11	Catania, Italy	60,000	–
1730 - December 30	Hokkaido, Japan	137,000	–
1737 - October 11	Calcutta, India	300,000	–
1755 - November 1	Lisbon, Portugal	60,000	8.0	mentioned by Voltaire in Candide
1822 - September 5	Echigo[?], Japan	30,000	–
1855	Wellington, New Zealand	1	8.2
1868 - August 13-15	Ecuador and Peru	40,000	–
1887 - February 23	French Riviera[?]	2,000	–
1887 - May 3	Sonora, Mexico	42	7.4
1905 - April 4	Kangra[?], India	370,000.
1906 - April 18	San Francisco, California, USA		-
1908 - December 27	Messina, Italy	86,926	7.5
1920 - December 16	Gansu, China	100,000	8.6
1923 - September 11	Yokohama, Japan	200,000	8.3
1927 - May 22	Nan-Shan[?], China	200,000	8.3
1931	Managua, Nicaragua
1931 - February 3	Napier, New Zealand	258	7.9	see Napier earthquake
1932 - December 26	Kansu, China	70,000	7.6
1935 - May 31	Quetta, India	50,000	7.5
1948	Ashgabat, Turkmenistan	86,926	7.5
1960 - May 22	Chile	1,500	9.5	Known as the Great Chilean Earthquake[?]; most powerful earthquake ever recorded. Tsunamis caused deaths as far away as Hawaii and Japan.
1964	Anchorage, Alaska, USA	125	9.2	Most powerful earthquake in U.S. history, known as the Good Friday Earthquake
1966	Tashkent, Uzbekistan		-
1968	Sicily, Italy; Gibellina, Belice		-
1970 - May 31	Northern Peru	66,794	7.7
1972 - December 23	Managua, Nicaragua	10,000		the city was almost completely destroyed
1976 - July 28	Tangshan[?], China	242,769	8.2
1977 - March 4	southern and eastern Europe	1,50
1985 - September 19	near Mexico City, Mexico	10,000	7.5
1988 - December 7	North-Western Armenia	55,000	6.8
1989 - October 17	Loma Prieta (Santa Cruz) California	63	6.9	Caused the collapse of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, and the Nimitz Freeway[?] in Oakland, California. Largest quake on the San Andreas Fault since the 1906 San Francisco quake.
1990 - June 20	North-Western Iran	50,000	7.7
1992 - March 13	Eastern Turkey	~540	6.8
1993 - September 29	Maharashtra, India	9,748	6.4
1995 - January 17	Kobe, Osaka, and Kyoto, Japan	5,477	7.2	called the Great Hanshin earthquake
1995 - May 28	Neftegorsk[?], Russia	~2,000	7.6	Killed 2/3rd of the town's population
1997 - May 10-11	Northern Iran	4,000	7.5
1998 - February 4-8	Takhar[?], Afghanistan	2,323	6.1
1998 - May 30	Afghanistan	4,700	6.9
1999 - August 17	Turkey	15,000	7.8
1999 - September 20	Taiwan	2,474	7.6
2000 - February 13	El Salvador	400	6.6
2001 - January 13	El Salvador	5,000	7.7
2001 - January 26	Gujarat, India	20,103	7.7
2003 - May 21	Algeria	2,000	6.8

The Richter scale was adopted in 1935, and was used in the above table also about earlier earthquakes at a merely indicative title. Earthquakes' effects were once measured after the Mercalli scale, which regards the practical damages that a seismic event causes to infrastructures and houses, and a sort of comparison between the two scale is now in use, especially for ancient events.

External link

USGS list of current earthquakes (http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/)

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