THE UNIVERSAL ALMANAC tells us that there were only 21 earthquakes of major strength between the years 1000 and 1800. Between 1800 and 1900 there were 18 major earthquakes. In the next 50 years, between 1900 and 1950, there were 33 major quakes — almost as many as the number in the preceding 850 years![24] 

Between 1950 and 1991 there were 93 major earthquakes — almost triple the number of the previous half century — which claimed the lives of 1.3 million people around the world. This dramatic increase of severe quakes has led many scientists to predict that we are entering a new period of great seismic disturbances.

A 1995 top-level meeting of geologists and seismologists warned that the rise of big cities along seismic fault-lines will cause unprecedented catastrophes in the near future:

"It’s virtually certain there will be catastrophes in the coming decades, the likes of which we have never seen," Roger Bilham told an International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics meeting. "Fatality counts exceeding one million are not an unreasonable projection given that 50 percent of an urban population can be lost in a single earthquake." While major earthquakes "have generally spared the world’s urban centers in recent decades, this trend will not persist indefinitely," Bilham said.[25] 

The prophet Isaiah also envisioned monster quakes in the last days, saying, "The foundations of the earth are shaken. The earth is ... shaken exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall totter like a hut … in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall" (Isaiah 24:18-20; 30:25, NKJV).

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