Some Remarks Concerning Worldwide Urban Earthquake Hazard and Earthquake Hazard Mitigation

By the year 2000, approximately 3 billion people — nearly one-half of the world’s population — will live in urban areas. Of the fifty largest cities, half will have populations over 10 million, and half will lie within 200 kilometers of faults known to produce earthquakes of magnitude 7 or greater. Death tolls from recent urban earthquakes have been large: the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in China reportedly killed 250,000 people; the 1990 earthquake in Tabbas, Iran killed 40,000; the 1991 earthquake in Spitak, Armenia killed 25,000. The rapid growth of the world’s cities will make such disasters more deadly and more frequent.