The news about earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Japan, and now Turkey have caused some in the public to wonder if earthquakes are happening more frequently. Unfortunately, there are those in the media, science, and religion who use these events to be noticed or spread their message.
Luckily, the AP has published an article talking about how earthquakes are more deadly these days. However, the higher death toll is because more population is living in poor housing near earthquake zones and not because the quakes are more powerful. As the article states, people do not die because the earth shakes but instead because things fall on people or other related damaging events like fires.
For those who worry about the divine in such things, they should remember Numbers 16:31-32 where whole groups are consumed by the earth during a quake. Also, earthquakes have been horribly deadly before as the 1556 Shaanxi quake killed over 800,000 people. Biblicaly and even recently things have been much worse. It is just that there are more people, more poor housing, and a global media to spread the news at the speed of light.
1 comment:
I fully agree that earthquakes are always dangerous for life and property,but with rapid urbanisation and industrialisation,coupled with population rise,more and more problems are cropping up including formation of slums and shanty town where houses are of poor quality and if their lacation is within the fault zone than its disastrous and that is what happened in recent earthquake,so it is the duty of respective govrment of countries to ensure better housing facility.
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