Earthquakes

There are hundreds of earthquakes every year that are large enough to do some damage.  Really big ones (7.0 and greater) aren't as frequent.  We rarely hear about them because they usually take place in remote areas of the world with little populations. When they hit heavily populated areas, they are devastating! We are focused now on Haiti (7.0) and Chile (8.8 - one of the highest ever recorded). 230,000 people were killed in Haiti and 1.5 million people were left homeless (It moved the entire city of Conception 10 feet to the West!). There were fewer deaths in Chile (800), but 1.5 million homes were damaged. Every time a big one hits a metropolitan area, I remember the 8.1 that hit Mexico City in 1985.  10,000 people were killed and $3 to 4 Billion (with a B) damage (that quake was felt in Los Angeles and Houston!).

Here are a few stats from the last four years:

2007:   17 quakes over 7.0  (and four of them were over 8.0!)
2008:   12 quakes over 7.0
2009:   17 quakes over 7.0 ( one over 8.0)
2010:     4 quakes in the first two months of the year (one of them over 8.0)

We need to pray that these large quakes don't hit in heavily populated areas.