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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.

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