10 Largest Earthquakes

Identification of the main earthquake can be a difficult task since it depends on how the question is defined. Some people might consider the largest earthquake those, the highest recorded on the Richter scale, while the number of deaths or other costs could see the damage. In addition, the Richter scale was invented in 1934, so that it can be difficult, earthquake, occurred before that date to compare with later more accurate measurements.
Earthquakes before 20 Century have occurred to assess particularly difficult. A severe earthquake in Pompeii in 62 CE, seven years before the volcanic eruption that would destroy the city, was said caused considerable damage to the city have. In 1556 an earthquake in Shaanxi Province in China was reported to have killed at least 830,000 people, and is still the deadliest earthquake in history considered. The New Madrid quake, which struck the U.S. in southern Missouri in 1811 caused the Mississippi to flow backwards. There were many other serious earthquake in history, the severity will probably never be known of the detail.


More recent earthquakes have been more accurately measured, and the size of those that occurred can be estimated from 1934th to measure the ten largest earthquakes recorded since 1900 to an estimated magnitude are as follows:

Rank	Date	Location	Magnitude	Estimated Deaths/Damages (USD)
1	1960	Chile	9.5	1,655/$6 million
2	1964	Alaska	9.2	128/$300 million
3	2004	W. Sumatra	9.1	227,898/estimated in the billions
4	1952	Russia	9.1	none reported/$1 million
5	1906	Ecuador	8.8	500-1500/unknown
6	1965	Alaska	8.7	none reported/$10,000
7	2005	N. Sumatra	8.6	1300/unknown
8	1950	Tibet	8.6	780/$25 million
9	1957	Alaska	8.6	none reported/$5 million
10	2007	S. Sumatra	8.5	21/unknown

Of the ten largest earthquakes recorded since 1900, five on or about the continent of Asia, three in North America and two occurred in South America. The Chilean earthquake of 1960, the largest in terms of the measured size, damage as far away as Japan, Hawaii and California coast.

lost in respect of life, led the 2004 West Sumatra quake, which also known as the earthquake in the Indian Ocean 2004, the highest death rate for recorded earthquakes since 1900. The quake itself was reported in the regions feel as far away from the epicenter, such as Malaysia, Singapore and Bangladesh. The vast majority of lives lost due to resulting tsunami in Indonesia, who also hit landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, including Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. It spawned further tremors as far away as Alaska.


Of the ten largest earthquakes since 1900, caused all but a tsunami, which caused the death and / or property damage. Even the 1950 Tibet earthquake caused hundreds of deaths due to river flooding. Eight days after Tibet quake broke a landslide that had formed a natural dam in the river Subansiri immediately after the quake, easy, allegedly killing an additional 500 people.

As the United States Geological Survey, the world's ten largest earthquakes since 1900 in all of the so-called Pacific Rim of Fire recorded centered known. The geological region contains more than 75% of the Earth resting and active volcanoes and is home to about 80% of the world's largest earthquake ever recorded were. The region itself runs around the coast of New Zealand, in a northerly direction along the eastern coast of Asia, across the North Pacific to Alaska and south to the entire West Coast of North and then South America.

The Pacific Rim of Fire touches the edges of the seven separate tectonic plates: Pacific, Indo-Australian, Eurasian, North American, Cocos, Nazca and Antarctic. Tectonic plates are huge parts of the earth's crust, the rest of the coat, a warm, soft layer of compounds to move the plates causes. It is the shift of the plates, which not only cause the world's largest earthquakes, but is the primary cause of most earthquake the planet experiences.