Earthquakes

~sigh~ Another earthquake & many lives lost. Reports say around 18,000. Is it just me or is the world more prone to 'natural' disasters? Is it due to global warming, sheer fluke or just a sign of the times [ie the end is near?] Revelations indicate that as the end draws near, more hardship will occur including natural disasters.

Some would be interested to know that the tectonic plate that Australia is a part of moves a few centimeters every year. I know because I'm in the survey industry. I don't exactly know in which direction but I can find out. [I have my sources][Update: I found out that Perth is moving 7 cm each year north eastwards, the east coast is moving around 6cm]

Anyway, it seemed to me that earthquakes are more common nowadays so I did some research on the web [it is just amazing how much information is floating around in cyberspace] and found the following statistics about earthquakes:

Number of earthquakes worldwide:

• Year 2000 => 22256
• Year 2001 => 23534
• Year 2002 => 27454
• Year 2003 => 31419
• Year 2004 => 31199
• Year 2005 => 21390 [as of 09 Oct 2005]
• Information sourced from here

It surprises me that there were so many earthquakes in past years. Maybe it just so happens that these are ocurring in heavily populated areas causing significant damage. From the look of things, it seems the number of earthquakes is rising.