Worldwide Earthquake Statistics

Feb 15, 2016 | World | Climate

Last Sunday I was reading the breaking news about a cliff that had collapsed into the sea on New Zealand’s South Island following a severe magnitude 5.9 earthquake that happened near to Christchurch. I remembered when I visited New Zealand last year that I heard the nickname of this country is the "Shaky Isles" for it's constant seismic activity. The two islands that compose this country lie on the margin of two colliding tectonic plates, making them earthquake prone.

The usgs.gov website has an interesting section with statistics about Earthquakes worldwide. Please find next a heatmap table with the data they publshed there :

There were two particularly deadly years: 2004 when a [tsunami hit many countries in the Indian Ocean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami), and 2010 when a huge earthquake happened in Léogâne, Haiti.