Quake comparison

The recovery process in the 1995 Osaka-Kobe earthquake in Japan and the 1999 earthquake in Taiwan may provide a comparison to the May 12 temblor in Sichuan Province.

The Osaka-Kobe earthquake caused a direct loss of US$96 billion, equal to 1.8 percent of Japan's then economic output, while the Taiwan quake, which caused US$10.7 billion in direct losses, accounted for 3.5 percent of its economy in 1999.

But the two quakes did not affect too much their domestic industrial output and economic growth.

In the quarter when the quakes happened, the industrial production growth slowed 1.6 percentage points in Japan and 8.6 percent in Taiwan while the economies of Japan and Taiwan lost 0.6 percentage point and 1.8 percentage points respectively from a quarter ago.

But the situation normalized later and industrial production rose 2.3 percentage points in Japan and climbed 4 percentage points in Taiwan.

(Shanghai Daily June 23, 2008)