Palaeoseismology: Historical and prehistorical records of earthquake ground effects for seismic hazard assessment / Палеосейсмология: исторические и доисторические записи последствий землетрясений для оценки сейсмических угроз

Earthquakes are one of the greatest natural hazards humans face. During the twentieth century alone, over two million people died during strong ground shaking, attendant fires, tsunamis and landslides. Most recently, in May 2008, about 80 000 people died in an earthquake in Sichuan Province in China and, earlier, on 26 December 2004, more than 200 000 people lost their lives to the tsunami resulting from the great earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. In December 2003, the ancient city of Bam in Iran was destroyed by an earthquake, with the loss of over 30 000 lives. The worst disaster in modern times occurred in China in July 1976, when an entire city was destroyed and over 240 000 people killed in less than six minutes. Earlier, in 1556, an earthquake in north-central China killed an estimated 800 000 people, one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history. <...>