not a launching a debate..just adding to the thread a view from Tornado Alley :icon_cheese:
i grew up in Kansas. Lived through an F5 tornado that tore through Topeka KS. June 8, 1966. remember it like it was yesterday. Hot day, late afternoon dead calm (dust rising from the streets but no wind, no birds, no dogs barking), then "green" sky, and 15 minutes later sheer terror.
no doubt big tornadoes/storms/floods have much greater damage-causing frequency than big quakes (although i read there are millions of earthquakes every year but most are inconsequential).
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php
and surely growing up in Kansas versus California, my biases may be obvious and understandable. but to me there is something that seems really unsettling when the ground underneath your feet is literally moving: ya cant hide, cant run, cant really be warned in advance, etc.
I experienced three "baby" quakes: in 1980 and 1986 in Michigan, and I was in Tokyo during a 4.4 about 10 years ago (jet-lagged and slept right through it but it rearranged a few things in my hotel room).
these big quakes also interrupt the earth's rotation..literally stopping/slowing (albiet briefly) the spin of the planet. nothing quite like that from any other natural planetary event. add a tsunami on top of that, and now 500,000 people can get killed.
in a way, big quakes are like plane crashes to me...infrequent, no warning, etc, but when they go down usually a LOT of people go with them, under unimaginable conditions sometimes before the terrible event concludes.
| Rank | Death toll (estimate) | Event | Location | Date |
|---|
| 1 | 1,000,000–4,000,000* | 1931 China floods | China | July, August, 1931 |
| 2 | 900,000–2,000,000 | 1887 Yellow River flood | China | September, October, 1887 |
| 3 | 830,000 | 1556 Shaanxi earthquake | China | January 23, 1556 |
| 4 | 450,000 (242,000–655,000) | 1976 Tangshan earthquake | China | July 28, 1976 |
| 5 | 375,000 (250,000–500,000) | 1970 Bhola cyclone | East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) | November 13, 1970 |
| 6 | 300,000 | 1839 India cyclone | India | November 25, 1839 |
| 7 | 300,000 | 1737 Calcutta cyclone | India | October 7, 1737 |
| 8 | 280,000 | 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami | Indian Ocean | December 26, 2004 |
| 9 | 273,400 | 1920 Haiyuan earthquake | China | December 16, 1920 |
| 10 | 250,000–300,000 | 526 Antioch earthquake | Byzantine Empire (now Turkey) | May 526 |
looking at Wiki table above (5 of 10 worst quake related), AND having said all that, i think i would take quake risks OVER tornado risks
plus California has nice weather and wonderful sunsets, and I always look forward to visiting the state with NO fear of quakes at all. :icon_pirat:
