|
| Year |
Location |
Magnitude |
Comment |
|
| 1960 |
Agadir, Morocco
|
5.7 |
12,000 to 15,000 deaths and 25,000 injured.
One of the world's deadliest earthquakes.
Over one-third of the population of
Agadir was killed and at least another
third injured by this short-duration
earthquake, which lasted less than 15
seconds. It is the most destructive
"moderate" quake (magnitude less than
6) in the 20th Century - the direct
opposite of the magnitude 8.1 Mongolian
earthquake of 04 Dec 1957, which killed
very few people. All buildings in the
Founti, Kasbah and Yachech sections of
Agadir were destroyed or very severely
damaged and more than 95 percent of
the people in these areas were killed.
Over 90 percent of buildings were
destroyed or damaged in the Talbordjt
district and more than 60 percent were
damaged in New City and Front-de-Mer
districts. The exact casualty figure is
unknown because once it was clear there
could be no more survivors in the
rubble, much of the area was bulldozed
because of health and safety concerns.
This moderate quake was so destructive
because it was a shallow event right
under the city. Also, few buildings had
been built to seismic codes because
people thought that the area did not
have a serious earthquake risk. It had
been forgotten that a previous town at
this location, named Santa Cruz de
Aguer, had been destroyed by an
earthquake in 1731.
|
|
| 1972 |
South of Honshu, Japan
|
7.2 |
This earthquake caused four landslides on the
island of Hachijo 180 miles south of Tokyo.
People were knocked off their feet there and
on the nearby Island of Miyake. Electric power
was briefly lost, a wall of a government
building collapsed, and a forest fire was started
by the collapse of a kiln. In Tokyo, tall
buildings swayed and objects tumbled from shelves.
A tsunami of a few centimeters' amplitude was
observed at Tateyama, Cape Shiono Misaki, and other places.
From Significant Earthquakes of the World 1972
and Earthquake Information Bulletin, Volume 4, Number 3.
|
|
|
U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey