The report by AIR Worldwide gives the estimate in American dollars as between 15 billion USD and 35 billion USD:  http://www.air-worldwide.com/NewsAndEventsItem.aspx?id=20337

In comparison, the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake caused $15 billion in insurance claims losses.  If the AIR analysis proves accurate, the Japanese earthquake would rank as the second-costliest catastrophe in modern times, adjusted for inflation, right behind Hurricane Katrina. AIR officials cautioned that the quake cost estimate issued today was preliminary and did not include costs associated with the tsunami that followed the earthquake or potential nuclear damage.

Friday’s quake resulted in moving Japan eight inches closer to California.  The intensity of the quake was eight thousand times more powerful than last month’s earthquake that hit Christchurch in New Zealand, which was a 6.3 magnitude quake on the Richter scale.   That quake hit on February 22nd, New Zealand time, less than a month ago, and is estimated to be creating 12 billion dollars in insurance claims losses. 

The Northridge quake was a 6.7 magnitude on the Richter scale. 

The costliest and most devastating quake in all of American history was the San Francisco earthquake of April 18th 1906.   That quake was a 7.9 on the Richter scale, which was a full 1.0 in magnitude less than Japan’s Friday quake.  That San Francisco quake of 1906 killed more than 100,000 people and was most destructive because of the fires that broke out as a result of broken gas lines.  When the fire department came to hook up fire hoses, no water emerged from the hydrants because the quake had knocked out the city’s water system.

So, the gradation in magnitude goes from 6.3 for Christchurch on February 22nd, 6.7 for Northridge on January 19th 1994, 7.9 for San Francisco on April 18th 1906, and 8.9 or 9.0 for Northeastern Japan last Friday, March 11th, 2011.  Some reports state Friday’s Japan earthquake was a magnitude 8.9 and others state a 9.0. 

Pictures of the devastation, courtesy of the L.A. Times:  http://framework.latimes.com/2011/03/12/scenes-of-destruction-in-aftermath-of-8-9-earthquake-in-japan/#/0

lonce@adjustercom.com