Deadly tremors of the decade

Earthquakes have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the last 100 years and improvements in technology have only slightly reduced the death toll.

January 12, 2010:

• Fears that thousands have died in Haiti after a quake of 7.0 magnitude struck near the capital Port-au-Prince.

April 6, 2009:

• Scores die in Italy as a powerful earthquake hits the historic central city of L’Aquila.

October 29, 2008:

• Up to 300 people are killed in the Pakistani province of Balochistan after an earthquake of 6.4 magnitude struck 70km (45 miles) north of Quetta.

May 12, 2008:

• Up to 87,000 people are killed or missing and as many as 370,000 injured by an earthquake in just one county in China’s south-western Sichuan province.

The tremor, measuring 7.8, struck 92km (57 miles) from the provincial capital Chengdu during the early afternoon.

August 15, 2007:

• At least 519 people are killed in Peru’s coastal province of Ica, as a 7.90-magnitude undersea earthquake strikes about 145km (90 miles) south-east of the capital, Lima.

July 17, 2006:

• A 7.7 magnitude undersea earthquake triggers a tsunami that strikes a 200km (125-mile) stretch of the southern coast of Java, killing more than 650 people on the Indonesian island.

May 27, 2006:

• More than 5,700 people die when a magnitude 6.2 quake hits the Indonesian island of Java, devastating the city of Yogyakarta and surrounding areas.

April 1, 2006:

• Seventy people are killed and some 1,200 injured when an earthquake measuring 6.0 strikes a remote region of western Iran.

October 8, 2005:

• An earthquake measuring 7.6 strikes northern Pakistan and the disputed Kashmir region, killing more than 73,000 people and leaving millions homeless.

March 28, 2005:

• About 1,300 people are killed in an 8.7 magnitude quake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Nias, west of Sumatra.

February 22, 2005:

• Hundreds die in a 6.4 magnitude quake centred in a remote area near Zarand in Iran’s Kerman province.

December 26, 2004:

• Hundreds of thousands are killed across Asia when an earthquake measuring 9.2 triggers sea surges that spread across the region.

February 24, 2004:

• At least 500 people die in an earthquake which strikes towns on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast.

December 26, 2003:

• More than 26,000 people are killed when an earthquake destroys the historic city of Bam in southern Iran.

May 21, 2003:

• Algeria suffers its worst earthquake in more than two decades. More than 2,000 people die and more than 8,000 are injured in a quake felt across the sea in Spain.

May 1, 2003:

• More than 160 people are killed, including 83 children in a collapsed dormitory, in south-eastern Turkey.

February 24, 2003:

• More than 260 people die and almost 10,000 homes are destroyed in Xinjiang region, in western China.

October 31, 2002:

• Italy is traumatised by the loss of an entire class of children, killed in the southern village of San Giuliano di Puglia when their school building collapses on them.

January 26, 2001:

• An earthquake measuring magnitude 7.9 devastates much of Gujarat state in north-western India, killing nearly 20,000 people and making more than a million homeless. Bhuj and Ahmedabad are among the towns worst hit.