There are often discrepancies between 'official' death tolls and the estimates given by other authorities: for example, a figure of 750,000 is sometimes quoted for the Tang-shan earthquake of 1976. Several other earthquakes in China and Turkey resulted in the deaths of 100,000 or more.
In recent times, the Armenian earthquake of 7 December 1988 and that which struck north-west Iran on 21 June 1990 caused the deaths of more than 55,000 (official estimate: 28,854) and 50,000 respectively. The famous earthquake that destroyed San Francisco on 18 April 1906 killed between 500 and 1,000, mostly in the fires that followed the shock.
The earthquake that struck Kobe, Japan (now officially known as the Hyougo-ken Nanbu earthquakel. at 5.46 a.m. on 17 January 1995 was exceptionally precisely monitored by the rescue authorities and indicates the severity of an earthquake affecting a densely populated urban area.
It left 3,842 dead and 14,679 injured. A further 114,679 people were immediately evacuated, the total rising by 26 January to 232,403. Reaching 7.2 on the Richter scale, the initial shock completely destroyed 54,949 buildings and damaged a further 31,783, while the fires that followed devastated an area of 65.85 hectares (162.72 acresl. including 7,377 buildings.
Location Date number killed
1 Near East/Mediterranean 20 May 1202 1,100,000
2 Shenshi, China 2 Feb 1556 820,000
3 Calcutta, India 11 Oct 1737 300,000
4 Antioch, Syria 20 May 526 250,000
5 Tang-shan, China 28 Jul1 976 242,419
6 Nan-Shan, China 22 May 1927 200,000
7 Yeddo, Japan 30 Dec 1703 190,000
8 Kansu, China 16 Dec 1920 180,000
9 Messina, Italy 28 Dec 1908 160,000
10 Tokyo/Yokohama, Japan 1 Sep 1923 142,807
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