General Information-Tidal Waves and Earthquakes

Earthquakes Throughout History

The Washington Times

Two of the most devastating tidal wave disasters in modern history took place in the same region.

By far the worst was the enormous surge that killed at least 300,000 people and possibly as many as a million in Bangladesh (at that time called East Pakistan ) in 1970. It was probably the worst natural disaster of the 20th century and the full death toll will never be known. That tidal wave was triggered by a cyclone, not an earthquake.

In 1883, the Indonesian volcano on the island of Krakatoa exploded killing around 36,000 people and setting off powerful tidal waves. So much dust and ash was thrown into the atmosphere that the entire world experienced breathtaking sunsets for three years afterwards. Three months after the eruption the debris thrown into the atmosphere had spread to higher latitudes and caused vivid red sunset afterglows that made certain cities appear to be on fire.

Another natural disaster that is almost unknown in the West, was a devastating flood along the Yangtze River in China in 1931 that killed 3.7 million from drowning, disease, and starvation.

The worst earthquake of the 20th century in its human toll was the 1976 quake, in Tangshan , China , which registered 7.8 on the Richter scale and killed an estimated 240,000 people.

The two most destructive earthquakes in recorded human history are believed to have been the 1556 quake in Shansi Province , China , which killed around 830,000 people and a medieval quake in Upper Egypt in 1201 that is estimated by chroniclers at the time to have killed a million people.

The great French archaeologist Claude Schaeffer, excavator of the Bronze Age City of Ugarit, in present day Syria , believed that enormous quakes thousands of years ago periodically wrecked cities throughout the Near East , bringing to an end the Early Bronze Age and later disrupting civilization repeatedly.

The most physically powerful earthquakes over the past century in terms of the energy expended and shock waves they produced registered 8.6 on the Richter scale and occurred in Kashmir in India in 1905, killing 19,000 people, and Valparaiso , Chile in 1906, killing 1,500 people. The contrast in casualties reflects the sparse population in the Chilean quake zone.

However, the most physically powerful earthquake ever believed to have occurred in documented history occurred in the continental United States . It was the 1811 New Madrid quake. It was so powerful it radically changed the course of the Mississippi River .

In those days, the region was lightly populated wilderness and Indian tribes there lived a nomadic existence and therefore were not exposed to being killed in collapsing buildings. But if a quake of that magnitude occurred in that region today, near the modern city of St. Louis , for example, hundreds of thousands would die.

In 1923, Tokyo was destroyed by an earthquake that registered 8.3 on the Richter scale. It is believed to have been the most severe earthquake ever to strike a major city in recorded history. The 1976 Tangshan quake, for all its even vaster death toll, "only" measured 7.8.

Estimates of the Tokyo death toll vary from 99,000 to 150,000. It was as destructive as the US Army Air Force firebombing of Tokyo in 1945.