Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
1989, October 17—San Francisco Bay Area
Hitting the Bay Area during the World Series, this
major earthquake, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, killed relatively few people—67—and was
responsible for billions of dollars of damage.
1990, June 21—Northwestern Iran
An earthquake measuring 7.7 destroyed villages and towns in
the Caspian Sea area, leaving 50,000 people dead and 400,000 homeless.
1991, April 29—Soviet Georgia
In the midst of the political tremors shaking the former Soviet
Union, an earthquake rolled through the mountainous area in Soviet Georgia just weeks after the
former republic declared its independence. Communications were destroyed, buildings razed, and
approximately 100 people were killed.
Since 1999, the most deadly earthquakes include:
Date
Location
Number of Deaths
1999
Turkey
17,118
2001
India
20,023
2003
Bam, Iran
26,000
2004
Sumatra, Indonesia
227,898
2005
Kashmir, Pakistan
80,000
2010
Haiti
316,000
2011
Japan
28,050
S
OURCE
:
Time Almanac
, 2012.
Geographic Voices
A description of the crossing and naming of the Pacific Ocean from
Magellan's Voy-
age Around the World
, by Antonio Pigafetta
Wednesday, November 28, 1520, we debouched from that strait, engulfing ourselves in the Pa-
cific Sea. We were three months and twenty days without getting any kind of fresh food. We ate
biscuit, which was no longer biscuit, but powder of biscuits swarming with worms, for they had
eaten the good. It stank strongly of the urine of rats. We drank yellow water that had been putrid for
many days. We also ate some ox hides that covered the top of the mainyard to prevent the yard from
chafing the shrouds, and which had become exceedingly hard because of the sun, rain and wind.
We left them in the sea for four or five days and then placed them for a few moments on top of the
embers, and so ate them; and often we ate sawdust from boards. Rats were sold for one-half ducado
apiece, and even then we could not get them. But above all the other misfortunes the following was
the worst. The gums of both the lower and upper teeth of some of our men swelled, so that they
could not eat under any circumstances and therefore died. . . .
We sailed about four thousand leguas during those three months and twenty days through an
open stretch in that Pacific Sea. In truth it is very pacific, for during that time we did not suffer any
storm.
Sailing for Spain, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (circa 1480-1521) set out in 1519 with
a Columbus-like scheme to attempt to reach the Molucca Islands in the East Indies by sailing west. His
