The Countries Hit by the Most Earthquakes

This article is published in collaboration with Statista

by Katharina Buchholz

On Friday, a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar, causing widespread destruction and a death count feared to be in the quintuple digits. The country lies on the intersection of two tectonic plates, making it prone to seismic activity. One of the biggest faults in the country, the Sagaing fault, runs near major cities like Yangon and Mandalay, placing both in a dangerous situation. The latter city has now been tragically located close to the epicenter of the country's most recent earthquake, heavily affecting its more than 1.7 million residents as well as many in Sagaing, the capital of the province of the same name and the fault's namesake.

The earthquake was caused by two tectonic plates rubbing sideways against one another. This can cause quakes that are affecting large areas and are shallow, which makes them destructive. Many countries that experience the biggest number of major earthquakes are close to convergent plate boundaries, where two plates move directly towards one another. Nevertheless, Myanmar's position on a so-called transform plate boundary places it in the top 30 of the countries most affected by major earthquakes in the past 35 years.

Another major factor in the destruction and deadliness of Friday's earthquake is the lack of building code enforcement in the country that has been ruled by a military junta (again) since 2021, has been rocked by a civil war since then and has been largely cut off from the rest of the world since its coup four years ago. Experts had been anticipating a more deadly quake in Myanmar as the country had only recently started urbanizing and newly - and poorly - built structures now cause a much larger threat the population than in previous decades.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, two other Asian countries were affected by the most major quakes since 1990: China (187) and Indonesia (173). Other heavily affected places in Asia are Japan, India and the Philippines. With 32 and 24 tremors since 1990, respectively, Greece and Italy are two of the most endangered regions in Europe.

In February of 2023, almost 60,000 people lost their lives in severe earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. The first country is also among the most earthquake-prone on Earth, with 65 major quakes recorded by NOAA since 1990. Six of them - including two on Feb. 6, 2023 - had a magnitude of 7 or more. Another country from the region, Iran, is also among the nations with the most major earthquake activity in the last three and a half decades, while Afghanistan is in rank 10 with 39 major quakes since 1990. In Latin America, it's Peru that is most earthquake-prone.

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