Is it true that Earthquakes never cause a large loss of life when they occur?

Answer 1

If this is a 'complete the sentence' exercise, the words to finish the sentence are: '...during the daytime'. This is because during the daytime, people are able to quickly evacuate buildings before they collapse and more people are outside. During the night, people are asleep in their houses, many of which are not built to withstand earthquakes, and cannot evacuate in time.

Now, if you read the entire question, as I did not first time round (although the first part still applies when the question is 'Earthquakes never cause a large loss of life when they occur...'), the answer is subjective according to your evaluation of the value of life. From one point of view, taking all into account, an earthquake killing a million people does not cause a large loss of life because there are billions of people left in this world still alive to continue the human race's existence.

Someone campaigning for world peace "I support 'Kony 2012' because I think peace is cool!" and other piles of utter tripe may claim to care greatly about human life and would say that there is nothing more valuable, therefore a single death cries out to the whole world as a great injustice.

For reference, I base the 'utter tripe' statement on the fact that you clearly value your own high quality of life over other's right to life because you still have one. (I.e. you have not given everything you have to the poor, you do not pressure the government to spend the billions they spend on defence on feeding defenceless people in Africa, you do not even care. "One does not simply...Stop a Ugandan Warlord by liking a status" is a 'meme' which strikes a nerve here. A Facebook group will not enforce world peace. Get real. Do something real.)

Therefore, I find myself in a situation whereby I must decide between ethics and 'evolutionary reality' (i.e. we are animals and therefore don't matter as there is no greater plan). You may also consider the religious argument, which goes along the paths of ethics, which is based upon religion (to an extent).

Therefore, I leave it up to you to decide. Compare:

• Your mother dies once per lifetime
• A child in Africa dies every second
• Earthquakes kill tens of thousands of people each year

Which one do you care about more: your world or their world. Do you constantly think about children in Africa dying, or do you worry about your mother dying? Therefore, by comparing the two and finding where you lie on the scale from caring about the world to not, base your decision.

I hope this helps.