Doug Bostrom

"The potency of earthquakes in each country, we define as the sum of fatalities reported divided by the number of earthquakes that generated the associated disasters. Thus, the potency measures the size of the disaster generated by an average fatal earthquake in each country."

Unexpected?

"The leaders in the list of potency are Haiti, Azerbaijan, Syria and Israel, all with potencies above 20,000 fatalities per average earthquake."

#SeismicHazard
#OpenAccess
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-022-05627-x

Earthquake fatalities and potency - Natural Hazards

We have compiled a new catalogue of earthquake fatalities for the world, covering the period 856 BC to March 2022, listing 2795 reports. We estimate that the reporting of fatal earthquakes is complete for events with more than 16 fatalities since 1927. The total number of fatalities recorded is 8,336,526. 117 countries have reported at least one earthquake with one fatality or more. 77 and 52 countries have reported more than 100 and 1000 earthquake fatalities, respectively. Caution has to be exercised in estimating what earthquake disasters are in store for a given country because the 95 year period of high quality recording is about an order of magnitude shorter than return times of great earthquakes. Nevertheless, we introduce the earthquake potency for a country, defined as the sum of recorded fatalities divided by the number of earthquakes that it took to accumulate them, which equals the average earthquake disaster size in a given country, in units of fatalities per event. Potency is listed based on all known fatal earthquakes and also based on those since 1927. Both lists have their shortcomings, but provide estimates of what size of future earthquake disaster is likely in store for a particular country. For rescue purposes, it is important to realize that small earthquake, M 5 ± 0.5, can cause significant numbers of fatalities.

SpringerLink
Oct 16, 2023 at 9:10pmWeb
Show threadDr. Eric J. Fielding, PhDOct 16, 2023
@Doug_Bostrom I would have guessed that Haiti would be high on that list. I would not have guessed Azerbaijan, though.
Show threadDoug BostromOct 16, 2023

@EricFielding

Indeed. I'm pretty ignorant but even so, some real suprises in the list.

Also, how "small" temblors still cost in aggregate. That's a surprise as well.

Show threadDr. Eric J. Fielding, PhDOct 16, 2023
@Doug_Bostrom They are all countries that have infrequent large earthquakes and apparently have few moderate earthquakes that cause a small number of deaths. Countries like Iran have many earthquakes of a wide variety of magnitudes, so more total fatalities but many kill a few hundred people or even less.
Show threadDoug BostromOct 16, 2023

@EricFielding

Digging in, so the authors also point out!

As with so many well-constructed papers, the set-up for "here's where we're launching from" is a concise mini-education for a layperson. The framing alone is good to know. :-)

Show threadDr. Eric J. Fielding, PhDOct 16, 2023
@Doug_Bostrom I know the first author well. He has been studying earthquakes for about five decades.