Here is a list of the world’s 10 most deadly quakes over the last 40 years. The list does not include Haiti’s magnitude 7.0 earthquake last week. The latest casualty report, from the European Commission citing Haitian government figures, doubled previous estimates of the dead to approximately 200,000, with some 70,000 bodies recovered and trucked off to mass graves.
-July 27, 1976: A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in China killed at least 242,000 people.
-Dec. 26, 2004: A magnitude 9 quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed 226,000 people in 12 countries, including 165,700 in Indonesia and 35,400 in Sri Lanka, and affected 2.4 million.
-May 12, 2008: A magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Eastern China killed 88,000 people and affected nearly 45 million people in 10 provinces.
-Oct. 8, 2005: A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Pakistan killed 75,000 people and affected nearly 5.3 million people.
-May 31, 1970: A magnitude 7.9 quake in Peru killed 67,000 people and affected 3.2 million.
-June 20, 1990: A magnitude 7.4 earthquake in Iran killed at least 40,000 and affected 710,000.
-Dec. 26, 2003: A magnitude 6.5 earthquake in Iran killed 27,000 and affected 268,000.
-Dec. 7, 1988: A magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Armenia killed at least 25,000 and affected more than 1.6 million.
-Sept. 16, 1978: A magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Iran killed 25,000 and affected 40,000.
-Feb. 4, 1976: A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Guatemala killed more than 23,000 and affected nearly 5 million.
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Source: U.S. Geological Survey and WHO’s International Disaster Database
