The strongest earthquakes in recent history: where the double earthquake in Venezuela is located

The double earthquake of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale registered this Wednesday in the north of Venezuela has left at least 164 dead and 971 injured, according to the latest balance sheet offered this Thursday by the president in charge of the country, Delcy Rodríguez, who has warned that The earthquakes have been followed by 30 aftershocks and have left a significant number of buildings collapsed in the state of La Guaira, the most affected area and where the authorities “must concentrate rescue efforts.”

The double earthquake, which occurred just seconds apart andIn the Yumare region, in the north of the country, is the most powerful recorded in Venezuela in more than a century, according to the registry of the United States Geological Survey (USGS)which catalogs both events among the 395 earthquakes of magnitude equal to or greater than 7 documented in the world in the last 26 years.

To find a precedent of comparable magnitude in the region, we must go back to August 2018, when a magnitude 7.3 earthquake shook the northeast of the country (Sucre), although due to its great depth it did not cause fatalities. Before this, the most tragic earthquakes in the country’s recent history had been the one in Cariaco in 1997 (magnitude 6.9 and 73 deaths) and the one that shook Caracas in 1967 with a magnitude of 6.4, leaving 236 dead.

The fact that two earthquakes of such power have occurred in such a short time in a country without an intense seismic history has skyrocketed the number of victims. Since 2000, only three earthquakes have exceeded a magnitude of 7 and those that exceed 6 are fewer than ten.

THE DEADLIEST EARTHQUAKES SINCE 2000

The deadliest earthquake in the last 26 years was the one that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, with a magnitude of 7.0, which caused the death of up to 316,000 people, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States (NOAA).

It is followed by the tsunami caused by the 9.1 magnitude earthquake recorded off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, on December 26, 2004, which caused 227,899 deaths in fourteen countries in the Indian Ocean. In third place is the Sichuan earthquake, in China, on May 12, 2008, with a magnitude of 7.9 and 87,652 deaths, followed by the Pakistan earthquake in October 2005, with a magnitude of 7.6, which left 76,213 dead, and the double Kahramanmaras earthquake, in Turkey, on February 6, 2023, with a magnitude of 7.8, with 56,697 fatalities.