The incredible 8.8 earthquake in Chili begets the question about our planet and the end of the world. We don't seriously think the end is near, nor that we need fear natural disasters more than ever, even though recent data indicates that natural disasters i.e. hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, volcanic eruptions and the like are on the increase.
Earthquake severity are measured according to the Richter scale or more currently the moment magnitude scale according to the deflection of the needle of a seismometer. The scale is logarithmic meaning that a 8.5 quake is 5,000 times as violent as a quake measuring 1.0.
Earthquakes have been around since the earth cooled, but megacities have not. Our population growth, particularly urban concentration and underlying fault zones are a lethal combination that predicts a huge disaster is likely.
403 million people live in cities that are at risk for quakes. Today people live "on top of one another" in concentrated population centers. Tokyo, Osaka, Cairo, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Jakarta, Lima and 18 more megacities are at risk of a big one in terms of casualties.
New Testament scripture refers to cataclysmic events associated with the return of Jesus, which in part contributes to the "end of the world" theme. Certainly being involved in a megaquake would seem like the end of the world.
With Love and kindness,
THE HATMAN
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