China Earthquake

Since the earthquake that happened not to far from my home I have been tracking data from http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ pretty regularly. The data on the 7.9 quake and all the aftershocks is unbelievable. I'm not sure if it is normal to have this many aftershocks or not, but it seems like a lot in my book.

As of this post, there have been a total of 47 earthquakes around the area. That count includes the initial 7.9 quake and the near after 6.0 quake (15 minutes after).

List of quakes in the area of the initial 7.9 quake is found here (note that as time goes by the quakes will fall off this list as they only keep about a weeks worth of historical data on this page).

In about 2.5 days there have been 47 quakes in this area averaging 5.12 in strength! All have been 4.4 or higher. So basically there has been a significant quake every ~1.2 hours since the initial 7.9 and 6.0 quakes. I can't imagine what it would be like to be trapped in ruble and having to endure after shocks every hour or so. There are many brave people risking their lives to save others. I hope the shaking calms soon for them.