1201AD Earthquake in Egypt

As a result of the recent tsunami tragedy, I’ve heard people asking about or speculating on the worst natural disasters in history. A brief Google search turned up multiple sites saying that the worst natural disaster was in 1201AD when an earthquake struck northern Egypt and Syria claiming over a million lives.

Unfortunately, none of the sites actually give any proof of this or indication of where they got the information. I’m not doubting that it happened, just figuring that 95% of those sites got their info from the other sites and just accepted it without asking. So does anyone know more concrete information about it?

According to the Big Cheese in another Thread the biggest 20th century example would be the Yangtzee flooding with about 3.6 million dead in 1931.

The Big Cheese is my cite!