Disasters with highest death tolls
1920 Haiyuan Earthquake
China
1920 Haiyuan earthquake occurred on December 16 in Haiyuan County, Ningxia Province, Republic of China. It was also called the 1920 Gansu earthquake because Ningxia was a part of Gansu Province when the earthquake occurred. The earthquake hit at 19:05:53 Gansu-Sichuan time (12:05:53 UTC), reportedly 7.8 on the Richter magnitude scale, and was followed by a series of aftershocks for three years. Total casualties were reported as 200,000 in a summary published by the United States Geological Survey, and 235,502 according to the Catalog of Damaging Earthquakes in the World (through 2008) maintained by the International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering.