The impact of an earthquake (at any location) is characterized by two primary characteristics:

Intensity

This measures the magnitude of the event. Higher is the value, the bigger is the magnitude. The most common scale used for measuring an earthquake is Richter Scale. It should be understood that Richter scale is a logarithmic scale. What this means is an earthquake measuring 6.0 is 10 times more powerful than an earthquake measuring 5.0

Epicenter

This denotes the exact location, where the earthquake originated. The deeper it is inside the earth, the lower will be the impact on the surface – where human beings reside.

There are 100s of earthquakes taking place on a daily basis all around the world. However, most of these earthquakes are really low-intensity, too-low to be noticed. However, sometimes there are some earthquakes which are significantly intense.