Nepal

              Nepal is a country known primarily for one thing, Mount Everest. Sadly, now it will be known for another. Nepal was just struck by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake yesterday. A BBC article sums up the basic facts. The massive earthquake struck on the border of the Australian and Eurasian plates in the Kathmandu valley between the Nepalese capitol of Kathmandu and city of Pokhara.  So far over 1,000 deaths have been confirmed across four countries (Nepal, China, Bangladesh, and India) with thousands more suspected once the magnitude of this disaster is realized. This is only magnified by the already poor infrastructure of the country making damage to structures even more drastic resulting in more deaths.

              Now that the basics are down let’s see how this stacks up against other recent earthquakes. The most recent one would be Haiti in 2010. This was only a 7.0 magnitude earthquake but the loss of life was much greater at 220,000 due to the denser population of the region. The most recent on the same plate boundary was in the Kashmir province of Pakistan in 2005 which was similar in power at 7.6 but once again fell upon a more populous region. The most devastating this century occurred in 2004. An astronomical 9.1 magnitude earthquake occurred in in the Indian Ocean triggering a massive Tsunami resulting in 230,000 deaths in Indonesia alone. This certainly stacks up there with the strongest of earthquakes and must have immediate attention to minimize all damage.