The 8.0-magnitude quake that struck off the Solomon Islands on Wednesday, while massive, was far less powerful than other "superquakes" to have struck around the world in recent decades.
Here is a list of the greatest earthquakes since the beginning of the 20th century, according to the moment magnitude scale.
- May 22, 1960: A 9.5-magnitude earthquake, the biggest ever recorded, kills 5,700 people in Chile while the tsunami it triggers leaves 130 dead in Japan and 61 in Hawaii.
- March 27, 1964: An earthquake measuring 9.2 in southern Alaska followed by a tsunami kills more than 100 people.
- December 26, 2004: A 9.1-magnitude undersea quake off Sumatra island causes a tsunami that kills 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia.
- March 11, 2011: A 9.0 magnitude quake triggers a devastating tsunami off northeast Japan, leaving some 19,000 people dead or missing and crippling the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the world's worst atomic disaster in 25 years.
- November 4, 1952: More than 2,300 people are killed when a 9.0-magnitude quake occurs on Siberia's Kamchatka peninsula, causing a tsunami felt as far as Chile and Peru.
- February 27, 2010: A huge 8.8-magnitude earthquake rocks Chile, killing at least 450 people and triggering tsunami warnings across the Pacific.
- January 31, 1906: An earthquake measuring 8.8 off the coasts of Colombia and Ecuador causes a tsunami that kills about 1,000 people.
- February 4, 1965: An 8.7-magnitude earthquake shakes the Aleutian Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean, causing damage but no deaths.
- March 28, 2005: An 8.6-magnitude quake on Indonesia's Nias island off Sumatra leaves at least 900 dead.
- March 9, 1957: An earthquake measuring 8.6 hits the Andreanof Islands in Alaska, generating a tsunami reaching as far as Hawaii, causing damage but no casualties.
