Almost 9,000 people were killed worldwide in earthquakes during 1998, triple the number that died the year before and a twentyfold increase from 1996, the U.S. government said. Despite the rise in deaths, the number of people killed by earthquakes last year was still under the long-term average of about 10,000 annually.
The agency's analysis showed that 8,928 people died from earthquakes around the globe in 1998, compared to 2,907 the previous year and just 419 people in 1996. Most of last year's deaths, 6,323 fatalities, occurred in two earthquakes that hit the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan in central Asia.
The U.S. Geological Survey detects between 18,000 and 20,000 earthquakes annually, equal to about 50 a day.