Comparison
Within China's geography, the deadliest known earthquake in history occurred in 1556 in Shaanxi, China. The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake is estimated to have killed 830,000 people in China, although reliable figures from this period are hard to verify. Another earthquake is the 1920 Haiyuan earthquake in Gansu Province, which killed an estimated 235,000. In 1927 another earthquake struck in the same area, this time at Xining; measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale, it also resulted in 200,000 deaths. Other earthquakes that have caused an extreme loss of life in the same decade include the 1923 Great KantÅ earthquake, which killed 143,000 in Tokyo in 1923.
The 2008 Sichuan earthquake had the same measurement on the Richter scale at 8.0 in magnitude. It, however, occurred in a mountainous region where relief efforts were noticeably hampered by the geographical makeup of the land nearby. The Sichuan earthquake also had a much quicker and more organized response system than Tangshan, as the political, social and technological environment was different. The Chinese government allowed international aid and open media access to the disaster area.
Read more about this topic: 1976 Tangshan Earthquake
Famous quotes containing the word comparison:
“The difference between human vision and the image perceived by the faceted eye of an insect may be compared with the difference between a half-tone block made with the very finest screen and the corresponding picture as represented by the very coarse screening used in common newspaper pictorial reproduction. The same comparison holds good between the way Gogol saw things and the way average readers and average writers see things.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Clay answered the petition by declaring that while he looked on the institution of slavery as an evil, it was ‘nothing in comparison with the far greater evil which would inevitably flow from a sudden and indiscriminate emancipation.’”
—State of Indiana, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find ultimate foothold. Nothing can calm it, since its goal is far beyond all it can attain. Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.”
—Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)