© 1998 Antelope Valley Press, Palmdale, California, USA (805) 273-2700
The U.S. Geological Survey reported Wednesday that the world was shaken by 17 major tremors during the year. Major means they had a magnitude of 7.0 or more, meaning they were capable of widespread, heavy damage.
That's just under the annual average of 20 major quakes. There were 21 in 1996.
Despite the decline in temblors, the 1997 death toll was at least 2,913, up from 449 in 1996, according to figures compiled by the Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.
The series of tremors that damaged the revered Italian city of Assisi in September were probably the most noticed of the year.
Tourists began returning in December to some of the churches and monuments associated with St. Francis of Assisi, but much repair work still needs to be done.
The year's deadliest earthquake struck northern Iran on May 10 with a magnitude of 7.1. It caused at least 1,567 deaths, 2,300 injuries and left 50,000 homeless.
In the United States the year's strongest quake had a magnitude of 4.9 and struck the state of Washington in June, causing slight damage at Bremerton and Poulsbo.
Other significant earthquakes for the year occurred near the east coast of Kamchatka, Russia and near the coast of central Chile.
The strongest earthquake in the world in 1997 struck Xizang Province, Tibet, about 520 miles northnortheast of Katmandu, Nepal, on Nov. 8. Although the preliminary magnitude of this earthquake was 7.9, damage and casualty reports were light because the area is sparsely populated.
While their number varies from year to year, the survey noted that the number of major quakes has been fairly constant throughout this century.
There has been an increase, however, in the number of quakes located because of the growth in the number of scientific monitoring stations and improvements in global communications, the agency said. This has allowed scientists to locate many small earthquakes which were undetected in earlier years.
The agency estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year, many going undetected because they occur in remote areas or are very weak. The agency records 12,000 to 14,000 earthquakes each year, about 35 per day.