Fortunately, earthquake activities in and around the Peninsula are relatively low in number and intensity compared with those in the neighboring countries, such as Japan and China. Seismographs, however, often record sudden occurrence of moderate events: Historical documents show that several damaging earthquakes happened in the country, indicating that the Korean Peninsula is not completely safe from earthquake disasters. The annual average number of earthquake activities generally has been about 45 since 1978; the magnitude of those events has not been strong, ranging from 2.0 to 5.0 on the Richter scale. The largest magnitude ever recorded in the Peninsula was 5.8 in 2016.