Odd coincidence?

Question

Found this and thought it was odd, an earthquake killed the same number of people in 1138 as did the 2004 tsunami, check this out, weird huh?
10. Aleppo Earthquake - 1138, Syria [Deaths: 230,000]
Aleppo is located along the northern part of the Dead Sea Transform system of geologic faults, which is a plate boundary separating the Arabian plate from the African plate. The earthquake was the beginning of the first of two intense sequences of earthquakes in the region: October 1138 to June 1139 and a much more intense series from September 1156 to May 1159.

The worst hit area was Harim, where Crusaders had built a large citadel. Sources indicate that the castle was destroyed and the church fell in on itself. The fort of Atharib, then occupied by Muslims, was destroyed. The citadel also collapsed, killing 600 of the castle guard, though the governor and some servants survived, and fled to Mosul.
Number of lives lost to 2004 tsunami: 230,000

Answer 1

Interesting! though I should feel ashamed I never heard about the earthquake in Aleppo even am Syrian!

Good info, thanks. and yea it is weird!!

Answer 2

What would really be weird, if over a 800+ year interval, there were no coincidences like this.

Work it out: 800 years, about 10,000+ events a year, is 8,000,000 events. Each event has a number of killed, migrated, size of army, etc. Numbers are rounded to two significant digits, plus one to four zeros. That's about only 1,000,000 different numbers, so there should be about 8 coincidences. Any number from 4 to 16 coincidences would be reasonable.

Answer 3

Not all that odd. Two very approximate numbers repeating once for two different types of events (although from slightly similar sources) tallied in two different ways (one was a specific event, the other was a long series of events) in a nearly 900 year time span isn't all that much of a long shot.

Answer 4

Aside from lindajune's incredibly right answer, even if the numbers were right, sometimes there are, in fact, coincidences. And they are just that. Coincidences.

Answer 5

Weird.
But you have to remember that there was no formal or accurate method of counting people in the 12th century. There would have been a large number of nomadic settlements (as there are today) in that part of the world, and there would have been few accurate records.

According to some historians, the figure of 230,000 dead is based on a historical conflation of this earthquake with earthquakes in November 1137 on the Jazira plain and the large seismic event of 30 September 1139 in the Persian city of Ganja. The first mention of a 230,000 death toll was in the fifteenth century.

And the residents of Aleppo, a large city of several tens of thousands during this period, had been warned by the foreshocks and fled to the countryside before the main quake.