by Avinash Mendha

Created on: April 18, 2009   Last Updated: April 20, 2009

Before describing about most devastating earthquakes that have occurred in past history i would like to explain about 'What is a earthquake'. An earthquake occurs under the earth's surface when two blocks of earth surface slip past each other. The place where they slip past is known as fault plane, and place where earthquake starts is known as hypocenter, and location directly above hypocenter is known as epicenter. Earthquakes are the most devastating and has worst impact among the natural disasters that occur in world. Now coming back to most devastating earthquake in the world history i would like to describe few as follows:-

1. Egypt - Syria :- Here the most devastating earthquake occured on 5th July, 1201 killing about 1.1 million of people.

2. China - Shanxi :- Here earthquake occurred on 23rd Jan, 1556 killing about eight lakhs thirty thousand people(8,30,000) and the measured magnitude of quake was 8.

3. India - Calcutta :- Here the disaster occurred on 11th Oct, 1737 near Calcutta City killing about 3 lakhs(3,00,000) of people.

4. China - Tangshan :- Here earthquake occurred on 28th July, 1976 killing about six lakhs fifty-five thousand(6,55,000) people and the measured Richter scale magnitude was 7.8, earthquake occurred in morning and lasted for 10 seconds killing lakhs of people. Later on the death toll was declared as two lakh forty thousand(2,40,000) with no explanation.

5. Appleo - Northern syria :- Here the disaster occurred on 5th August, 1138 killing about two lakhs thirty thousand(2,30,000) people and measured as 8.5 in magnitude.

6. Xining - China :- Here the disaster occured on 22nd May, 1927 killing about two lakhs(2,00,000) people and was measured as 7.9 in magnitude.

7. India - Bay of Bengal :- Here the disaster occurred in 1876 killing about two lakh fifteen thousand(2,15,000) people.

8. China - Gansu and Shanxi :- Here the disaster occurred on 16th Dec, 1920 killing about two lakhs(2,00,000) people and was measured as 8.5 in magnitude.

9. Sumantra - Indonesia :- Here the disaster occured on 26th Dec, 2004 killing about one lakh sixty thousand(1,60,000) people and was measured as 9.0 in magnitude.

10. Japan -Tokyo-Yokohama:- Here the disaster occurred on 1st Sept, 1923 killing about one lakh forty-three thousand eight hundred(1,43,800) people and was measured as 8.2 in magnitude.

These were the 10 deadliest earthquakes ever that occured in various countries of world killing about millions of people worldwide.

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