World’s 10 Deadliest Earthquakes in the Past 100 Years

According to the US Geological Survey, a quake measuring 7.5 hit China’s industrial city of Tangshan in 1976, killing over 242,000 people. 

On 26 December, 2004, a massive 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck the coast of Sumatra, an island in Indonesia. It killed more than 230,000 people. 

On 12 January, 2010, an earthquake with a 7.0 magnitude devastated Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. It killed over 200,000 people, and left 1.5 million homeless.

A 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit the Kanto plain in Japan on 1 September, 1923. The death toll was over 105,000.

On 5 October, 1948, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake killed at least 110,000 people in and around Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. 

A 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit China’s southwestern Sichuan province on 12 May, 2008. It killed over 87,000 people, including thousands of school students.

On 8 October, 2005, a deadly 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Around 70,000 people died in Gansu province in northwest China after a 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit the region on 25 December, 1932.

Peru’s north coast was struck by a 7.9-magnitude earthquake on 31 May, 1970, leaving 67,000 dead.

On 6 February, 2023, a 7.8-magnitude quake struck southern Turkey and neighbouring Syria, followed by many aftershocks. It killed more than 50,000 people, according to a revised toll by AFP.