Today in Earthquake History

Today's Earthquake Fact:
The term seismic seiche was first coined by Anders Kvale in 1955, to describe oscillation of lake levels in Norway and England caused by the Assam earthquake of August, 1950.

Year at a Glance

December

Note: All earthquake dates are UTC, not local time.

«« December 19

December 21 »»

Year	Location	Magnitude	Comment

1940	Near Ossipee Lake, New Hampshire	5.5	The largest historical earthquake in New Hampshire.

1942	Erbaa, Turkey	7.3	1,100 dead. One of the world's deadliest earthquakes. About 5,000 buildings destroyed or damaged in the Erbaa-Niksar area. Surface faulting, with as much as 1.7 m (5.7 ft) of horizontal displacement, occurred in the North Anatolian Fault Zone from Niksar in the Kelkit River Valley to the Yesilirmak River west of Erbaa. Note that this quake occurred immediately to the west of the rupture zone of the 1939 Erzincan earthquake.

1946	Nankaido, Japan	8.1	1,362 deaths. One of the world's deadliest earthquakes. More than 2,600 people injured and 100 missing: over 36,000 houses destroyed or severely damaged in southern Honshu and on Shikoku. An additional 2,100 houses were washed away by a tsunami, which reached heights of 5-6 m (16-20 ft) on the east coast of the Kii Peninsula, Honshu and on the east and south coasts of Shikoku. Landslides, ground fissures, uplift and subsidence were observed in the area. The quake was felt from northern Honshu to Kyushu.

Show events that occurred on: