"Whether it's over the last 50 years or the last 500 years, they've had half the deaths," Schneider said.
It's cheaper to rebuild after an earthquake in China than it is in nearby Japan, but with more than 1.3 billion people in the country, the potential for loss of life and property is huge. One of the most brutal Chinese earthquakes in recent memory, the 7.5-magnitude quake that hit Tangshan in 1976, killed 242,769 people.
The new GEM maps give the public an unprecedented way to see detailed, local data on Chinese earthquake risks. GEM's global seismic risk map, for example, allows viewers to zero in on average annual economic losses around different cities and towns, and it's normalized to account for differences in construction costs.