People are still quoting a death toll of 100,000. Some are saying that the death toll in Port-au-Prince alone is up to 500,000.
The scale of death tolls by earthquake can be staggering. The worst earthquakes in recorded history are:-
830,000 1556 Shaanxi China
250,000 526 Antioch Antioch, Byzantine Empire
242,000 1976 Tangshan China
229,866 2004 Indian Ocean Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand
142,800 1923 Great Kanto Japan
100,000 1755 Lisbon Portugal
30,000 2003 Bam Iran
9,500 1985 Mexico City Mexico
3,000 1906 San Francisco United States
The death tolls listed for Haiti range from as low as 30,000 to as high as 500,000 in Port-au-Prince alone. The stated death toll of 100,000 puts Haiti's scale on a par with that of Lisbon.
If it's 500,000, that will put Haiti just below Shaanxi in terms of lethality; if it's 30,000, that will put the death toll's scale on a par with Bam in 2003.
By comparison, the death toll for The Big One (SF, 1906) is surprisingly small - only 3,000, less than the confirmed death toll of Mexico City in 1985.
The estimated populations of selected UK towns and cities are as follows:-
Berick-u-Tweed 26,000
Alnwick 30,000
Oswestry 34,000
Congleton 85,000
Crewe and Nantwich 104,000
Chester 117,000
Newcastle-u-Tyne 275,000
Manchester 432,000
Liverpool 475,000
Bradford 468,000
Leeds 707,000
Birmingham 1,000,000
London 6,800,000
Chilling thought to imagine a quake on the scale of Shaangxi taking out all of a populated city the size of Bradford, or one on the scale of Haiti's stated 100,000 death toll taking out all but a tiny remnant population of Chester.
If the death toll of Haiti comes to 500,000 in Port-au-Prince alone, that's more than the population of Bradford or Liverpool; the equivalent population of Newcastle, Chester and Crewe combined.
Staggering thought, isn't it?
