What is the richter scale?

Thanks to Charles Francis Richter, an American Seismologist in the 20th century, we can rate earthquakes! While most of us know the scale goes from 1-10, did you know that going from a magnitude 1 to 5 increases the power of the earthquake by 10000? Each level is 10 times stronger than the previous level. That means the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 was 10 times stronger than today's! Imagine what would have happened had the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake happened over land. Still, thousands were lost when the tsunami hit Indonesia.