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The most disastrous earthquake struck in Shanxi, China 1556. It measured about 8 on the Richter scale and killed an estimated 800,000 people. The death toll was so high because the earthquake destroyed a number of soft clay cliffs in which millions of people lived in artificial caves.

China is regularly hit by big quakes because it is the site of one of the most massive crust-shifting events in geologically recent history, the construction of the Himalayan mountain chain. As the Indian tectonic plate slides underneath the Eurasian plate, the Tibetan plateau is lifted up and buckled. The crust behind is stretched and thins. All of this results in sudden earth movements as the crust releases pent up strain.

The earthquake that struck off the coast of Sumatra last Boxing Day was 10 times stronger than the Chinese quake, measuring 9 on the Richter scale. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami affected many countries and killed 283,106 people, making it the second most devastating earthquake recorded

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