Iran Press/ Asia. Earthquakes are caused by slips between plates and within them. The largest instrumentally recorded earthquakes along the Circum-Pacific belt were a magnitude 9.5, Chile 1960 and a magnitude 9.2, Alaska 1962 earthquakes.
The Ring of Fire
The Circum-Pacific belt, also known as the “Ring of Fire”, is the world’s greatest volcanic and earthquake belt, where 81 percent of recorded earthquakes occur. It is located along the rim of the Pacific Ocean along the boundaries of tectonic plates, where various plates are subducting beneath another plate.
Alpide Belt
Following the Circum-Pacific belt is the so-called Alpide belt. This is a geographic area located in the southern region of Eurasia, where 17 percent of the world’s largest earthquakes occur. It runs from Java to Sumatra all the way through the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic. Some of the most destructive earthquakes in the instrumental era along this belt were the Sumatra, 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake, which generated a tsunami that killed over 230.000 people, and the Pakistan, 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake, where over 80.000 fatalities were reported1.
This chart shows the countries with the highest number of registered earthquakes between 1990 and 2022:
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