Abstract
It has been estimated that during historical time 50 to 80 (according to one estimate 74) million people have lost their lives in earthquakes or their immediate aftereffects, as fires, landslides, tsunamis, etc. The figure is rather modest compared to some other kinds of catastrophes, not to mention modern traffic. The distribution of population takes generally no account of earthquake risk, at least not on a large scale. In fact, some of the seismically most active areas are among those most populated; this is especially true for Japan. The distribution of population is dictated primarily from economic viewpoints, and it is considered far more practical to find protective measures against earthquake disasters. Active research is going on in this field at present. This concerns partly the problem of earthquake prediction (Chapter 10), which would make evacuations possible, partly the introduction of building codes, which are still lacking in many earthquake countries.
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Båth, M. (1979). Earthquake Statistics and Earthquake Geography. In: Introduction to Seismology. Wissenschaft und Kultur, vol 27. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-5283-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-5283-8_5
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