90. A Tale of Two Earthquakes

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I could not let today's 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile to go unmentioned, especially since it comes so soon after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti (the 2nd deadliest one in known history). So, this is officially my first post-sabbatical blogpost.

I have posted three previous times on the subject of earthquakes, which is certainly reasonable and proper to do so, since the focus of this "Future History" blog involves end-time events as mentioned in the Bible, and how current events relate to Biblical prophecies.

Before I comment further here, I'd like to direct your attention to those three previous posts where earthquakes were the major topic. (The word earthquake appears in many other posts however):

Post 31. "Earthquakes and the End Times", where the text of all the Bible prophetic passages about earthquakes are listed, plus a comment about current earthquakes in California. Posted July 10, 2009. Click here to read.

Post 32. "And Another Medium Quake in Calif today", where we discuss the Richter Scale, how it works, and the rating of famous (or infamous) earthquakes. Posted July 11, 2009. Click here to read.

Post 76. "Earthquakes: Are they getting your attention?", where I discuss whether quakes are really more prevalent. Posted October 1, 2009. Click here to read.

Since the contents of the above posts relate closely to the two recent earthquake events, please read them and then continue:

First, before we tackle and compare the human misery element of the two earthquakes, lets discuss the relative strength of the two earthquakes:

How much stronger was the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile than the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti? Lets see: If we divide the smaller 7.0 into the larger 8.8, we get 1.257 -- which means that the Chilean earthquake was 1.257 times stronger than the Haitian quake. Right?

Totally and utterly wrong!! Remember what we said in post #32, that to go up "1.0" on the Richter Scale (like from 5.0 up to 6.0, or from 7.5 up to 8.5), means that the "stronger" hurricane is ten (10) times stronger than the "weaker" hurricane. So the Chilean hurricane is AT LEAST 10 times stronger than the Haitian one, and almost 100 times as strong. But thanks to the miracle of Excel Spreadsheets, we can calculate the exact difference. To go from 7.0 up to 8.8 means the Chile hurricane was 63.1 times as strong as the Haiti earthquake. Trust me and Excel. (I'll post the calculations in a comment below. )

Now regarding human suffering, there are at least two mitigating circumstances as to why, when the Haiti quake killed 250,000 people, that the Chile quake did not kill millions.

First, today's Chile quake was much further underground, and the effect was blunted by the time it reached the surface.

Second, Chile had experienced an even larger earthquake on May 22nd, 1960 -- 9.5 magnitude, 1655 killed, and two million homeless. After that 1960 quake they prepared for "the next big one", with much stricter building codes and standards. As bad as things look now on television, it will turn out that years of Chilean preparation saved their country from a similar ruin in 2010.

I have not much more to add here, but just to note that the second decade of the 2000's is just barely starting, and already we have two massive earthquakes, one as measured by loss of life, and one as measured by the Richter Scale strength of the quake.

Finally, as I pointed out in an earlier post, back in July of 2009, California was averaging about 500 quakes a week of all sizes (most 3.0 magnitude or less). But now, just 6 months later, California is averaging nearly 750 quakes a week of all sizes. Here is the link to the current report: Click here.

My guess is that this will not be the last posting in 2010 on major earthquakes.
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