Speaking to the BBC’s Newsday programme a short while ago, Helen Janiszewski, Assistant Professor, Geophysics and Tectonics Division at the University of Hawaii said that today’s earthquake ranks among the ten most severe in recorded history. According to the US Geological Survey, external, at magnitude 8.8 it is tied at the sixth most severe quake in history, with the 2010 earthquake in Biobío, Chile, and the 1906 earthquake in Esmeraldas, Ecuador.

The USGS says of the Chile earthquake, “Occurring offshore near the city of Quirihue, this intense earthquake killed 523 people and destroyed more than 370,000 homes.”

Of the Ecuador earthquake, it says, “Referred to as the Ecuador-Colombia earthquake, this quake produced a strong tsunami that killed 1,500 and reached as far north as San Francisco.”

Interestingly, the fifth most severe earthquake was, like today’s, in Kamchatka Krai, Russia. It was in 1952 and was “the world’s first recorded magnitude 9 earthquake.”

It “triggered a massive tsunami that struck Hawaii, causing over $1 million in damages.”