What is the Biggest Earthquake Ever Recorded?
Thanks to the extensive records of the United States Geological Service (USGS), it is quite easy to learn about the biggest earthquake ever recorded, which occurred near Santiago, Chile, in 1960. Known as the Great Chilean Earthquake, the quake measured an impressive 9.5 on the Richter scale. The death toll of the Great Chilean Earthquake is not known, but estimates go as high as 6,000, and the earthquake may have caused as much as 800 billion US Dollars in damage. It is highly probable that some ancient earthquakes were of a higher magnitude, but because the Richter scale was not developed until the 1930s, it is difficult to quantitatively compare them. For example, the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 was by all accounts quite severe, and it generated a massive tsunami which only magnified the death toll, and the Shaanxi Earthquake which occurred in China in the 1500s was the deadliest known to history, killing almost one million people. The Shaanxi Earthquake may also have been the biggest
The largest earthquake recorded in the world in the last 200 years was the 1960 magnitude 9.5 earthquake in Chile. It caused 5700 deaths and created a large tsunami. It is the largest earthquake to be recorded by modern instruments and ruptured over 700km of faultline with slip of about 20m. It was the first real confirmation that the whole earth rings like a bell after a big earthquake.
