ABSTRACT
During the twentieth century well over 1,000 fatal earthquakes were recorded with a total loss of life approaching 2 million people. In more than 100 disasters the number of deaths exceeded 1,000. Approximately one-third of all deaths were in China where 250,000-750,000 people died in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake alone. The deadliest earthquakes, killing more than 100,000 people each, occur along the major tectonic collision zone which extends over 12,000 km from Indonesia through the Himalayas, the Middle East and the Alps to the western Mediterranean and north Africa. The very high losses are due to a combination of physical exposure (mountainous topography, frequent ground failure) and human vulnerability (high population densities, poorly constructed buildings). Earthquakes bring disaster to wealthy countries. The event at Kobe (Japan) in 1995, which killed more than 5,300 people and made 300,000 homeless, together with the 1994 Northridge earthquake (Los Angeles, California) remain the two most expensive environmental disasters ever recorded (see Table 4.3, p. 64). The relative cost of rural earthquake disasters in the MDCs is high. After the 1993 earthquake at Maharashtra (India), the extent of destruction to key agricultural assets exceeded
50 per cent and created severe difficulties for the survivors seeking to regain their livelihoods (Table 5.1).
