 The USGS, in their "List of Earthquakes with 50,000 or More Deaths", give an estimate that 150,000 were killed, which would make it the ninth deadliest earthquake in history.Although the Ardabil area is prone to numerous earthquakes and was struck by a major earthquake in 1997, the 893 event is, in fact, considered to be a "mistaken" earthquake, derived from misreadings of the original Armenian writings about the 893 earthquake in Dvin, Armenia; the Arabic name for Dvin is "Dabil".At about midnight on 28 December 893, the night after a lunar eclipse, Dvin, then the capital of Armenia, was devastated by an earthquake.