I dunno about that.

Anyone having gone through, or seen the effects of earthquakes will be able to testify to it's efficacy of shaking foundations and waking people up and make them spring into action.

If you care to take a look around Dutchsinse on YT, you will find EQ happen daily all over the globe in quite predictable patterns and force.

And there is a reason for it. Dutch explains it very well and relates it to solar weather, and often uses the analogy of the basin filled with water in which waves are produced. Have a look see. Very illuminating.

We, as humans, have knowledge of the effects of EQ's not because the bible says so, but because these things have occurred during the life span of the aware human race. A simple observation from Nature. And since we have a bias for patterns, three EQ suffice to make an estimated guess. LEt alone a couple of thousand years of recording EQ's. The bible merely uses what is already known, and ties it in with eschatological interpretations.

Of course, if you happen to belief either literally or more metaphysically the biblical interpretations, it is easy to think that everybody has that frame of reference, or has dug up these imageries from the source you so admire.