Earthquakes Tabulated

Japan	:	Earthquakes with damage records (excluding very little damage such as breakage of glass and merchandise)
China and Korea	:	Earthquakes with damage records. For the period after 1912, earthquakes with a seismic intensity of more than 7 (5-minus on the Japanese scale), or those causing casualties
United States	:	Earthquakes with a seismic intensity of more than 7
Soviet Union	:	Earthquakes with a seismic intensity of more than 8 (5-plus on the Japanese scale)
Other areas	:	Earthquakes causing fatalities or considerable damage Earthquakes with a seismic intensity of more than 9 (6-minus on the Japanese scale) were tabulated, even if they are without damage records.

For the period after 1980, all earthquakes with damage records were tabulated. Information related to the above earthquakes was also tabulated, but it rarely carries the seismic intensity. We set up certain criteria for each kind of literature (such as catalogs) and tried to avoid omission of earthquakes as big as mentioned above. The treatment of each kind of literature is explained later.

The catalog of significant earthquakes (Ganse and Nelson, 1982; Dunbar et al., 1992) published by WDC-A for Solid Earth Geophysics/WDC-A for Seismology carries many earthquakes that do not seem eligible for listing judging from the selection criteria, but all the earthquakes in the catalog are tabulated. (However, several earthquakes in Italy were eliminated. Refer to postscript.)

We selected all earthquakes whose meeting of the selection criteria was uncertain. We also selected earthquakes that seemed to be eligible for listing for some reason. We somewhat broadened the selection criteria for the literature we looked into over the last several years.

Earthquakes with records on tidal waves were, in principle, selected excluding those with special remarks, such as weak ones and those causing no damage, and those that were recorded only by marigraph. Several tidal waves that were not caused by earthquake may have been selected. In principle, tidal waves caused mainly by volcanic eruption were not selected. (The Krakatoa eruption in 1883 was tabulated because it was carried in the WDC-A catalog.)

Damage caused by volcanic eruption was naturally excluded, but damage caused by an earthquake accompanied by volcanic eruption was tabulated. It is sometimes difficult to identify from the literature whether damage was caused by an eruption or an earthquake. In this case, I made judgments on individual cases. For example, the major eruption of Mt. Bandai that occurred on July 15, 1888 (which caused total fatalities of 461 with collapse of the volcanic edifice) was accompanied by a strong earthquake, but it was not tabulated. On the other hand, the same phenomenon that occurred in St. Helens in the State of Washington in the United States on May 18, 1980 was tabulated as an earthquake with M5.2. (The principle of selecting all earthquakes in the WDC-A catalog is applied. This catalog set the number of casualties as 31 or 32, but the table set the number of casualties caused by the earthquake as unclear.)