Historical review of destrcutive Earthquakes

When and where the oldest earthquake occurred in history cannot be said with certainty, but the first earthquake recorded by man in history occurred in China in 1177 BC, about three thousand years ago.  After that, the oldest records are found in Europe in 580 BC and Sparta in Greece in 464 BC.  Historians believe that this earthquake occurred during the Polynesian War fought between Sparta and Athens.

The earthquake that leveled the entire city occurred in the Greek island of Rhodes in 226 BC.  Which destroyed the city of Kemer Yus here and at the same time the great statue of Helos installed on the beach of this city was also destroyed which is considered as one of the seven wonders of the world.

In 63 AD

An earthquake occurred in the Italian city of Pompeii, which destroyed all its buildings.  Then it took 16 years to rebuild this city, but on August 24, 79, there was an earthquake again and the volcano of Mount Vesius erupted in this city, so Pompeii and Herculaneum were completely destroyed.  According to historical sources, about 25 thousand people died.

In 365 AD

An earthquake occurred in the Greek island of Crete, which destroyed the city of Knossos with a total of 50 thousand people.  The magnitude of this earthquake has been estimated at 8.1 magnitude.  In history, an earthquake is also mentioned in the city of Cyrene in Libya in the same year.

On May 20, 526 AD

Two and a half million people died in a terrible earthquake in the Syrian city of Antioch.

In 844 AD

There was a severe earthquake in the city of Damascus, which killed about 50 thousand lives, experts believe that according to the Richter scale, its intensity must have been 6.5.  

In 847 AD

There was another earthquake in Damascus.  70 thousand people were killed and almost half of the city was destroyed.  In the same year, an earthquake also occurred in the city of Mosul in Iraq, which killed 50 thousand people.

On December 22, 856 AD

There was an earthquake in Iran that damaged the cities of Damghan and Qamis and killed a total of two hundred thousand people.  In the same year, the Greek city of Corinth also lost 45,000 lives in an earthquake.

In 893 AD

There were three major earthquakes in history.  One in the city of Caucasus, which killed 84 thousand people, the second in the city of Aradbil in Iran, about one and a half million lives were lost, and the third earthquake occurred in the ancient city of Daipur in the Indus Valley in India and about one hundred and eighty thousand people died.  happened  It is written in Tarikh Ibn Kathir that at that time Sindh was ruled by Abdullah bin Umar Habari who was appointed by the Caliph of Baghdad Mu'tazd Allah.  This earthquake occurred on 14 Shawwal 280 Hijri and during this period the signs of lunar eclipse and strong wind are also mentioned in traditions.  According to Ibn Kathir, five earthquakes occurred in the middle of the night one after the other and barely a hundred houses could remain safe.  Tabari and Ibn Kathir put the death toll at one hundred and fifty thousand.

During the eleventh century AD

23 thousand people were killed by an earthquake in the city of Shaanxi in China in 1036.  In 1042, an earthquake in Tabriz, Palra and Baalbak in Syria killed 50 thousand people and half the population of Tabriz city was destroyed.  According to experts, this earthquake must have had a magnitude of 7.3.  In 1057, 25,000 people died in an earthquake in Chihli, China.

In the twelfth century AD

In the year 1138 of the twelfth century AD, a terrible earthquake occurred in Ganzah and Aleppo in Syria, and about 230,000 people died, its magnitude is estimated to be 8.1 on the Richter scale.  During 1156 and 1157, thirteen cities were destroyed by a great earthquake in Syria.  In 1169, a severe earthquake occurred in Syria and a total of 80 thousand people died.  In 1170, 15,000 people died in an earthquake in Sicily.

In the thirteenth century AD

on July 5, 1201, the worst earthquake in history occurred in Upper Egypt and Syria, in which a total of eleven million people died.  In 1268, 60,000 people died in an earthquake in Anatolia and Cilcia, Turkey.  On September 27, 1290, an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 occurred in Chili (China), killing 100,000 people.  Three years after that, on May 20, 1293, an earthquake in Kamakura, Japan killed thirty thousand people.

During the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries 

There were 6 major earthquakes. 

On October 18, 1356, an earthquake killed 1,000 people in Basel, Switzerland.

The oldest earthquake in American history occurred in Peru in 1471.  But its details are not available.  On January 26, 1531, 30,000 people died in an earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal.  The second largest earthquake in history occurred on January 23, 1556 in Shaanxi (China), killing 830,000 people.  In November 1667, Shamakhi (Azerbaijan) 80 thousand people died in an earthquake.  On August 17, 1668, an earthquake in Anatolia (Turkey) killed 8,000 people.

In the 18th century

There were about 13 major earthquakes in the 18th century.  On January 26, 1700, an earthquake occurred due to the movement of the Cascadia plate in the United States, and the effect reached from North California to Van Quater Island.  This earthquake was of 9 magnitude.  In 1703, an earthquake in Jeddo, Japan killed 190,000 people.  In 1707, an underwater earthquake "tsunami" occurred in Japan, which killed 30,000 people.  On September 30, 1730, 137,000 people in Hokkaido Island, Japan were hit by an earthquake, and the following year, 100,000 people died in an earthquake in Beijing, China.  On October 11, 1737, 300,000 people died in a terrible earthquake in the city of Calcutta.  Five days later, an earthquake of magnitude 9.3 occurred in Kamchatka (Russia).  On June 7, 1755, an earthquake in northern Iran killed 40,000 people.  A week later on November 18, Boston, Massachusetts was also hit by an earthquake, but luckily there were no casualties.  On February 28, 1780, 200,000 people died in an earthquake in Iran.  On March 3, 1783, an earthquake in Calabria, Italy, killed 35,000 people.  On February 4, 1797, an earthquake in Ecuador and Peru killed 41,000 people.  A week later on February 10, an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.4 struck the province of Sumatra in the East Indies (present-day Indonesia), killing 300.

In the nineteenth century

During December 1812, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale in California killed 40 people.  On January 23, 1855, 4 people died in an earthquake in New Zealand and on January 4, 1857, one person died in California.  In the same year, an earthquake in Italy killed 11,000 people.  In 1868, an earthquake in Hawaii (USA) killed 77 people and 30 people in California.  In 1872, 27 died in California (USA), 60 in 1888 in California (USA), and one in 1892 in California.  In addition, the area of ​​Japan is Mino.  7,273 people died in the Mino-Owari earthquake in 1891 and 1,500 people died in the 1897 earthquake in Assam (India).  In the same century, there were 17 more earthquakes in the United States, whose intensity is estimated by experts to be between 6 and 8 magnitude, and 2 earthquakes occurred in the East Indies (Indonesia), but there were no casualties.  The subcontinent also experienced 5 major earthquakes during this century.  In 1819, 32,000 people were victims of an earthquake in Punjab and some parts of Kutch.  In 1838, there was an earthquake in Nepal that killed 2,000 people.  Three thousand people died in Kashmir in 1885 and two and a half thousand people died in Assam in 1897.  In 1827, an earthquake in Lahore killed a thousand people.  From 1827 to 1931, 9 earthquakes occurred in Balochistan, but their athantic details are not available.

In 20th century 

The first major earthquake of the 20th century occurred at Kangra on the Himalayan belt, killing 20,000 people.  In 1906, there were 3 earthquakes in which 1,000 people died in Colombia and Ecuador, 3,000 in San Francisco and 20,000 in Chile.  In 1908, one of the worst earthquakes in history occurred in Italy, killing 160,000 people.

In the second decade of the twentieth century, in 1918, 116 people died in Puerto Rico (mainland America).

In 1920, the ninth largest earthquake in history occurred in which 200,000 people died in Ningshir and Gansu regions of China.  The magnitude of this earthquake was 8.6.  In 1923, an earthquake in Japan killed 143,000 people.  In 1927, there were only 13 deaths from the California earthquake.  But in 1927, two big earthquakes also occurred, which killed 3 thousand people in Japan and 200,000 people in China.

In 1931, an earthquake in New Zealand killed 258 people.  The year 1932 and 1933 proved to be bad for China and Japan again, in which 70 thousand people of China and 3 thousand people of Japan lost their lives due to two earthquakes.  In 1933 alone, 115 people died in a minor earthquake in California.  In 1934, 13 thousand people died in an earthquake in Bihar province of India.  In 1935, an earthquake in Taiwan killed 3279 people.

A devastating earthquake occurred in the city of Quetta in Pakistan in 2012, which badly destroyed the city of Quetta.  The earthquake was of 7.8 magnitude, which also affected the areas of Mastung, Loralai, Kalat, Pashin and Chaman.  The epicenter of the earthquake was the Chaman fault.  This earthquake flattened the entire city in 30 seconds.  The death toll from this earthquake is estimated at 60,000.  In 1939, an earthquake in Turkey killed 32,700 people.

In 1940, a rare 7.1 magnitude earthquake in California killed only 9 people.  In 1944, there was an earthquake in Japan that killed 1223 people.  This earthquake has been estimated at 8.1 on the Richter scale.  In 1945, a sea earthquake and tsunami occurred in the coastal areas of Makran, due to which the rising sea waves reached Karachi, Mumbai and Kutch.  According to the book "World Map of Natural Hazard" by the Western researcher Sinch Ray, a total of 4,000 people died from this tsunami.  In 1946, three earthquakes struck Alaska, Dominion and Japan, killing about 1,600 people.  In 1949, only 8 people died in the earthquake in Washington.  In 1950, 6 earthquakes of moderate intensity occurred in America, Greece and Mongolia.  In which 476 people from Greece, 46 from America and 30 from Mongolia died.

During 1960, an earthquake in Morocco killed 10,000 people.  In the same year, 5,700 people lost their lives in an earthquake in Chile.

In 1964, an earthquake of magnitude 9.2 occurred in Alaska (USA), but only 125 people died.  In the same year, 26 people were killed by an earthquake in Japan.  In 1967, an earthquake in Washington killed 7 people.  In the same year, 900 people died in an earthquake in Koyana region of India.  In 1969, an earthquake in California killed one person.  In 1970, an earthquake in Peru (USA) killed 66,000 people.  In the same year, 900 people died in an earthquake at Bharuch (India).  In 1971, an earthquake in California killed 65 people.  In 1974, a total of 6,000 people died in an earthquake in Malakund and Patan regions of Pakistan.  In 1975, 10,000 people were killed by an earthquake in Haicheng, China.  In the same year, an earthquake of greater magnitude in the island of Hawaii claimed only 2 lives.  In 1976, an earthquake in Guatemala killed 23 thousand people.  In the same year, a devastating earthquake in Tangshan (China) killed an estimated 655,000 people, making it the third largest earthquake in history.  During 1977, fifteen hundred people died in an earthquake in Romania.

In 1981, 1500 people were killed in an earthquake in Nepal. In 1981, 220 people lost their lives in an earthquake in Gilgit.  In 1983, 2 people were killed in an earthquake in Rio de Janeiro, USA.  In the same year, 14 people died in an earthquake in the northern region of Pakistan.  In 1984, 500 people were killed in an earthquake in the Cachar area of ​​India and in 1985, 5 people died in an earthquake in Swat and Chitral in Pakistan.  In 1985, an earthquake in Mexico (USA) killed 9,500 people.  In 1987, 8 people died in an earthquake in California.  In 1988, 25,000 people died in an earthquake in Armenia (Turkey).  In 1989, an earthquake in California killed 63 people.

In 1990, a great earthquake struck Iran, killing 35,000 (according to some estimates, 50,000) people.  In 1991, 500 people died in an earthquake from Hindu Kush to Afghanistan, in the same year, 3 thousand lives were lost in an earthquake in Uttarkashi (Benares) region of India and 3 people died in an earthquake in California.  In 1993, 9748 people were killed in the Latter earthquake in India.  In 1994, an earthquake in California killed 60 people.  An earthquake also hit Bolivia and 5 people died.  In 1995, 5582 people were killed in an earthquake in Kobe, Japan.  In 1997, an earthquake occurred in Jaipur and Jabalpur regions of India.  In the same year, an earthquake also occurred in Pakistan's Baluchistan province and the total number of dead was about 1,000.  In 1998, an earthquake in New Guinea killed 2183 people.  In 1999, there were 4 major earthquakes, in which 1185 people died in Colombia, 17118 in Turkey, 2400 in Taiwan and 895 in Turkey.  In 1999, 1,000 people died in an earthquake in Chamoli, India.

In January 2001

An earthquake of magnitude 7.7 on the Richter scale occurred in the Gujarat region of India.  The intensity of this earthquake was also felt in Pakistan.  This earthquake killed 25 thousand people from India and 20 people from Pakistan.  In the same year, an earthquake in Peru killed 75 people.

In 2002

An earthquake in Afghanistan killed 1,000 people.  In the same year, an earthquake also occurred in Algeria, resulting in 2266 deaths.  In 2002, 3 earthquakes occurred in the city of Gilgit, Pakistan, which killed a total of 41 people. 

In 2003

An earthquake in California killed 2 people.  In the same year, 31,000 people died in an earthquake in Iran.  In 2004, moderate earthquakes occurred in Japan, Timor (Indonesia), Dominica and Costa Rica (USA), killing a total of 61 people.  In the same year, an earthquake also killed 500 people in Morocco.

The biggest disaster in 2004 came from the undersea earthquake and tsunami in the Indonesian state of Sumatra on December 26.  From which the waves went to Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Maldives, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles (Madagascar) and South Africa.  The death toll from this disaster is more than 500,000, while the official death toll is estimated at 283,160.

In 2005

An earthquake in Indonesia killed 1313 people.  In the same year, an earthquake also occurred in Iran, in which 790 people died, while another in Japan and in Chile, eleven people died in the same year. 

October 8, 2005

More than 80,000 people died as a result of a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Pakistan.  These deaths include those in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

May 26, 2006

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake hits the Indonesian island of Java, killing more than 5,700 people.

In 2013

There was an earthquake in the city of Awaran in Balochistan province of Pakistan, it caused severe damage and 5000 people died.

May 12, 2008

A magnitude 7.9 earthquake in eastern China kills 87,500.

January 2010

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake wreaks havoc in Haiti.  According to government data, 316,000 people died in this earthquake across the country.

March 11, 2011

The death toll from the tsunami after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in southeast Japan was recorded at around 20,000.

April 25, 2015

More than 8,800 people were killed in a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Nepal.

September 28, 2018

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake kills more than 4,300 people in Indonesia.

August 14, 2021

More than 2,200 people were reported dead after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit the Caribbean country of Haiti.

June 22, 2022

More than 1,100 dead after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake hits Afghanistan.

February 6, 2023 Turkiye and Syria earthquakes

7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the Syria and Turkiye.

In which estimated losses at least 33592 and 24M peops are affected . building destroyed 6589.

Still rescue operations continues in both the country.

Many rumours are circulating on social media about this earthquakes in Syria and Turkiye most of the people's think that this earth quake was not natural this was man made by Haarp research center USA through high frequencies of radio waves. In the favoure of this rumours many people's sharing videos in which blue light on the sky can be seen during earthquake they present them a high frequencies rays .

Whatever may be the truth, but this earthquake caused great destruction and cost a lot of precious human lives their properties and financial loss as well.