Author: by Igor ANANYIN, Dr. Sc. (Phys. & Math.), O. Schmidt Joint Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences The author of the present article has looked into the consequences of 18 disastrous earthquakes that have occurred in the past few decades in various regions-the Caucasus and Central Asia, Mongolia and Sahara, Kamchatka and Roumania, Komi and Moldavia, Sakhalin and the White Sea. These catastrophic tremors encompassed vast territories, sometimes within a radius of 1,000-1,500 km from the epicenter. Experts have used one new method for collecting data on the damage caused and on the anomalous medicobiological phenomena. This method has been developed by the author, the head and coordinator of these studies. IN THE MOUNTAINS AND ON THE PLATFORMS ALIKE Disastrous earthquakes usually occur in the mountainous tectonically active regions (orogens). Neither do they spare platform regions of the continents, except Antarctica, though the rate of their recurrence is far lower. Many seismic foci, precipitating 6 and 7 quakes on the Richter Scale, have appeared on the East European Platform (European part of the former USSR) in the twentieth century. Tremors from destructive earthquake foci elsewhere have been felt here too- with the epicenters in the Carpathians (1940, 1977, 1986), on the southern coast of the Crimea (1927), in the Caucasus (1966, 1970) and other regions. "Repercussions" of seismic disasters hitting more distant regions have reached the East European Platform as well: those at Oslo (1904), Ashkhabad (1948) and elsewhere. That is to say, the population of the rather tectonically quiet region, which is the European part of the former Soviet Union, has on several occasions been the target of strong seismic shocks throughout the twentieth century. As to the mountain regions, the situation is much more serious there. For instance, the following pattern is characteristic of the seismic regime between the cities of Makhachkala ... Read more