# All these earthquakes **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 14, 2010, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-these-earthquakes/536043 "2010-04-14T07:37:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-these-earthquakes/536043/1 "2010-04-14T07:37:20Z")
[First the earthquake in Haiti.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake) [Then the earthquake in Chile.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chile_earthquake) [And now 300 dead in China.](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_china_earthquake) Maybe it’s because I didn’t pay attention to the news very much when I was younger, but it seems like 2010 is having a BUNCH of earthquakes in urban areas. It’s only April and we’ve already had three major ones. Is this normal? ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-these-earthquakes/536043/2 "2010-04-14T07:54:18Z")
Curtis Lemay asked this same question fairly recently and got mocked for it. Be careful! ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-these-earthquakes/536043/3 "2010-04-14T08:54:26Z")
I don’t believe it was the question that got mocked so much as the implication that the end of days were near. [From this site](http://didyouknow.org/earthquakes/) there are an average of 19 earthquakes of greater than 7.0 each year. So far, this year is pretty normal. What is different is the news reports. We started this year with a major earthquake disaster in Haiti. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Now every earthquake anywhere is being treated as major news. Also, several have been near population centers even though the damage has been minimal. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-these-earthquakes/536043/4 "2010-04-14T09:14:58Z")
> [@kidneyfailure](#): > > Curtis Lemay asked this same question fairly recently and got mocked for it. Be careful! Oh no! ☹ > [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > I don’t believe it was the question that got mocked so much as the implication that the end of days were near. Oh, OK. 🙂 > [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > [From this site](http://didyouknow.org/earthquakes/) there are an average of 19 earthquakes of greater than 7.0 each year. So far, this year is pretty normal. What is different is the news reports. We started this year with a major earthquake disaster in Haiti. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Now every earthquake anywhere is being treated as major news. Also, several have been near population centers even though the damage has been minimal. All right, I figured it was something like this. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-these-earthquakes/536043/5 "2010-04-14T09:21:22Z")
> [@marsmegan](#): > > hi im new here!⭕smack: OMG were you displaced by an earthquake?! ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-these-earthquakes/536043/6 "2010-04-14T10:30:39Z")
[A recent thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=558738) on this same subject. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-these-earthquakes/536043/7 "2010-04-14T13:17:43Z")
Here [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opinion/11musson.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opinion/11musson.html) is a New York Times guest editorial written by a seismologist on Apr 11th, i.e. 2 days ago.