Mountains and rivers changed places and roads were destroyed. It was described as follows by chroniclers of the time: "Various misfortunes took place. On January 23, 1556, an earthquake occurred in the Shaanxi province of central China. In 2011, an earthquake and tsunami caused devastation to parts of north-eastern Japan Image: Asashi Shimbun/epa/dpa/picture alliance Two deadly quakes in China A 14-meter-high wave hit the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, causing meltdowns in three reactors and radioactive discharge that led to many countries revising their relationship with nuclear power. Some 22,000 people were killed and about 400,000 buildings collapsed or were completely destroyed. Measuring 9.1 on the moment magnitude scale, the quake caused powerful tsunami waves that flooded an area on Japan's Pacific coast greater than 500 square kilometers (193 square miles). In 2011, an undersea earthquake in the Tohoku region of Japan triggered a tsunami that in turn caused the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl accident of 1986. The 2004 tsunami was one of the worst natural disasters in history Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/G. It was thus one of the deadliest quakes in recorded history. Nobody died directly in the 9.1 magnitude Indian Ocean quake, also known as the Sumatra-Andaman quake of 2004, but the tsunami that it unleashed, with tidal waves of up to 30 meters, killed over 240,000 people in 14 countries in South and Southeast Asia. They can cause fatalities far from a quake's epicenter. Tsunamis often occur when the earth quakes below or near the sea. Much of the Alaskan infrastructure was damaged by the Good Friday earthquake Image: U.S. There were also no children in the schools that collapsed. However, lives were saved due to the fact that it was Good Friday and many businesses were shut.
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Post-quake tsunamis affected a series of coastal towns, with 139 people drowning in the ensuing floods. The Alaskan capital Anchorage sustained massive damage, with entire roads being destroyed. The 9.2 magnitude Great Alaskan Earthquake lasted some four minutes and destroyed large parts of the infrastructure in southern and central Alaska. While the US was only marginally affected by that Chilean earthquake, four years later on Good Friday, it became the epicenter of the second most powerful quake ever recorded.
The Valdivia earthquake is the strongest ever to be recorded Image: Getty Images/AFP Some 6,000 people died and resulting tsunamis killed 130 people in Japan and over 60 in Hawaii. Entire cities were reduced to rubble in just 10 minutes. Two tectonic plates shifted by over 30 meters, releasing huge volumes of energy in seismic waves.
It is thought to have measured 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale (MMS). The earthquake of May 22, 1960, that struck the town of Valdivia in southern Chile is the most powerful ever recorded and has become known as the Great Chilean Earthquake.
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