Chile did have quite a few earthquakes, but not many of them had a lot of fatalities in the 21st century. Had this quiz included the 20th century as well, it would definitaly have been there. I was surprised as well, i even typed Chile twice to be sure I didn't just do a spelling error the first time, had to look it up after.
Malaysia and Singapore are shielded by Indonesia from Tsunamis, and aren't on any fault line, which makes them pretty safe. The worst problem was only during 2003 - 2004 where a flash flood from a nearby Tsunami hit.
Chile is known for having the largest earthquake in the world (magnitude 9.5 in 1960). But there are subduction zones all along the Pacific, including one off the coast of the Pacific Northwest/Southwest B.C.
More like imagine living in America where the buildings are actually design to withstand the earthquakes. We have two large faults here. New Madrid in southern Illinois and San Andreas in California, but our building codes are put together so that any structure (especially one built after 2000) is designed to withstand earthquakes.
Had a 7.1 in the populated part of Alaska about 5 years ago. No deaths. A few buildings had to be condemned but no deadly collapses. Strict building codes helped. Now the 9.2 in 1964 . . . low population kept the death tolls lower although even most of those were from tsunamis in coastal towns. Big one waiting to go off in the Pacific Northwest and California gets rocked pretty good from time to time as well.
People rarely die from earthquakes in Chile, even though they're huge. Also it probably helps that there are relatively few people and the density is scarce.
Right it's a combination of earthquake magnitude and frequency, population total and density, quality of building construction, and disaster preparedness.
Because of tsunamis. Japan is located at the intersection of 6 independent tectonic plates creating faults in the ocean. So earthquakes are off land, which creates tsunamis. In the west coast of the USA, the fault line is mostly landlocked, so no tsunamis. It's much easier to design for earthquakes than earthquakes AND tsunamis. Additionally, tsunami design wasn't added to the International Building Code until 2016 after Fukushima. We've been appropriately designing for earthquakes since the 1994 Northridge Earthquake changed all we knew about seismic design. Starting in 1997 the IBC completely revamped their seismic design guidelines and it's what we use today.
To be fair, Japan got hit by one of the 5 largest ever recorded. That being said, my father used to work in a structural engineering firm in Anchorage. I remember that he often said that Japanese built bulky buildings designed to withstand the shaking while Alaskans preferred strong buildings built to roll or flex. The goal is not to protect the building from all damage but to keep it from collapsing under the stress. Eventually, no matter how strong you build it, the shaking earth will force it to bend.
They must have good infrastructure. Also, long narrow country so heaviest shaking spreads into ocean and other countries. All that said, I tried it a few times too. They've got 2 of the 5 strongest on record.
Looking at this really reminds you of how many deadly earthquakes have happened over the past fifteen years. Nepal, Japan and Haiti were especially recent.
Haiti's quake was a shallow one, and the epicenter was too far away from more populated regions of the DR to do as much damage. Also, the quake hit near heavily-populated Port-au-Prince in an area with many poorly-constructed buildings which drove the fatality count even higher. I know a medic who rode out the quake in an apartment building, and discovered his was the only building left standing in the entire area.
I didnt even realize tsunamis were included until i read the comments. But dont think i would ve gotten el salvador and algeria still, with that knowledge.
and how did you /he managed to read the caveat but not the quiz title??
Sri Lanka was heavily affected due to 2004 tsunami even to make this list of earthquake related deaths even though Sri Lanka never experiences earthquakes.
In the last 5 years: Sri Lanka was hit by 10 earthquakes the strongest being 2017 magnitude of 5.7. In 1983 Sri Lanka had an earthquake of 7.7 and had 72 earthquakes in that year.
I know Hispaniola is a big island, but it's striking that one side of the island suffered the scale of tragedy like Haiti's 130,000+ dead and meanwhile its neighbor the Dominican Republic doesn't register (thankfully) for this quiz.
Why is the thumbnail a tsunami? Of course, they do happen after an earthquake, but why not put in an image of the cracked ground? Or buildings crumbling?
*Facepalm*
and how did you /he managed to read the caveat but not the quiz title??
It's interesting how one is at 48 percent and then the next two are 8 and 7 percent.
Good quiz, though!