Damaging Earthquakes in the first half of 2010

Representative map showing significant earthquake events.

Image: Quakeschool 2010 (January 2010 to Jun 2010)

It is well known now that earthquakes are a common phenomenon across the globe, and the events which have significant loss to life and property, come into limelight. Perhaps, one major reason which contributes to this anxiety and concern is a common person’s increasing exposure to the Media and Communication tools - such as internet. An interesting study on such influence influencing even the technical observations has been made by [Hough, Martin, Bilham and Atkinson].

However, by cautiously using this same source internet, we can create a table below. This table and the map above show damaging earthquakes in the first quarter of this year ‘2010.

One focus here can be the schools/education infrastructure – and the loss of life, injuries and building damage in these. Also, take note of timings when these earthquakes occurred.

We do not intend to provide any conclusions here, and would like to leave this post for reader’s observation.

Table showing Earthquake events with significant losses

Count	Local time*	Universal Date (2010)	Magnitude**	Location	Life loss*	School( Life-Loss/ Injuries/Building damage)*
1	04:53 AM	January 12th	7.0	HAITI REGION	2,33,000	No life loss and injuries. Note: non-school hours Approximately 5000 school buildings affected.
2	03:34 AM	February 27th	8.8	Maule Region of Chile	432 to 700	No life loss and injuries. Note: non-school hours / vacation period Various News report on damage to education infrastructure. A rough estimate is of damage to approximately 1000 schools.
3	12:45 PM	February 27th	6.1	Salta, Argentina	2	No life loss and injuries. Small buildings, such as shacks or poorly built ones were damaged. No figures.
4	04:32 AM	March 8th	6.0	Okcular, Elâzığ Province, Turkey	57	No life loss and injuries. Note: non-school hours Damage to typical one storey buildings which dominate the region (typical school buildings). No figures.
5	07:39 AM	March 11th	6.9	Pichilemu, Chile	2	No life loss and injuries. Note: non-school hours It appears that the building damage has been low.
6	15:40 PM	April 04th	7.2	Baja California, Mexico	2	No life loss and injuries. It appears that the building damage has been low, but concerning damages to few schools.
7	07:49 AM	April 13th	6.9	Southern Qinghai, China region	2,200	Loss of life: Approximately between 60 to 100 school children. Injuries: Approximately 700 school children Poor quality construction has been blamed with approximately 10 school buildings completely destroyed.
8	04:58 AM	April 18th	5.3	Afghanistan region	10	No life loss and injuries. Note: non-school hours Roughly 20 schools buildings affected.
9	12:16 PM and series	June 16th	7.0	Papua, Indonesia	17	No figures on life loss and injuries could be found; probably because it was on Sunday. approximately 50 schools buildings were affected

* Note that some numbers may be approximate and parameters generic. This is for ease of communication.
**This is a simplified table; therefore complicated units have been removed. For details, see references.

References

1. Wikipedia list of 2010 earthquakes (21st Century Earthquakes)

2. United States Geological Survey (http://earthquake.usgs.gov)

3. Varied sources (news/reports) on the internet