I have no numbers yet I don’t doubt that earthquakes have killed more than tornadoes worldwide due to lax building codes in certain parts of the world and the few tornadoes that occur outside the central and eastern U.S.
In America, though, I think tornadoes are the deadlier force. Tornadoes rarely kill hundreds but they kill small pockets in a cluster of storms year after year on a rather steady basis. While man has built structures that limit earthquake damage, nobody has yet designed a building to limit tornado damage.
The rather absurd myth that earthquakes only kill people in Third World hellholes without building codes seems to have gotten stronger after the Haiti quake. Entirely wishful thinking.
People seem to forget the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan killed over 5,000 people.
In America, though, I think tornadoes are the deadlier force. Tornadoes rarely kill hundreds but they kill small pockets in a cluster of storms year after year on a rather steady basis. While man has built structures that limit earthquake damage, nobody has yet designed a building to limit tornado damage.
The U.S. will have an earthquake that kills several thousand people, probably within the next 2-3 decades. It's just a matter of time. When that happens quakes will easily pull ahead of tornadoes as a cause of death in the U.S.
And even now earthquakes are a far greater cause of dollar damage in the U.S. averaged out over time; the Oklahoma City tornado did about $1 billion dollars of damage; the Northridge earthquake did about $20 billion dollars of damage.
Even California has tens of thouands of older structures that are not remotely capable of surviving a large earthquake; when you start talking about places like the Pacific Northwest, Utah, and even the East Coast (where a M 7 quake has hit Charleston SC and large quakes have struck near Boston centuries ago) it's much worse; there's even a not-inconsiderable threat to New York City.
Is a quake ever going to kill 100,000 people in the US? No. But we don't have any sort of magical technological immunity against mass deaths in earthquakes.
It's called a cellar.
Seriously, few structures can survive a direct hit from an F5 or F6 twister at full strength, just like no building can survive an earthquake if the ground under it suddenly isn't there any more. But we have a lot of years' experience at building structures to resist high winds. Hurricane construction would leave a lot more structures standing in the Midwest during tornado season -- but it's not cost-effective.
If you want building codes that will stop people from dying, forget tornadoes. Swimming pools kill more people every year.
So far - I agree, though flooding is much more dangerous.
Tornadoes rarely kill hundreds but they kill small pockets in a cluster of storms year after year on a rather steady basis.
Agreed.
While man has built structures that limit earthquake damage, nobody has yet designed a building to limit tornado damage.
For most tornados simply taking shelter in an interior room is sufficient. For slightly larger ones being in a basement under something sturdy is usually enough. For the monsters, yeah - tough to design for though possible - think safe room on steroids. Question as always - do the probabilities make doing so a responsible decision...