Social media is abuzz with the claims made by Dutch researcher FrankHoogerbeets that a 7-magnitude earthquake might hit Pakistan andsurrounding regions in the coming days.
The researcher at Netherlands-based Solar System Geometry Survey (SSGEOS)had, three days before the devastating quake that has caused more than10,000 deaths up till now in Turkiye and Syria, predicted the earthquake ina tweet shared by him.
Monday’s earthquakes were felt in Egypt, Lebanon, Cyprus, Greece, and Iraq.The epicenter of the first earthquake, which was also the biggest,measuring 7.8 on the Richter Scale, was near the city of Gaziantep insouthern Turkiye. Thousands were killed in destruction brought about bythis tremor that hit at 4.17 am (local time).
Noticing the popularity of the claims, the U.S. Geological Survey said noscientist had “ever predicted a major earthquake”. It’s the latest case ofsomeone gaining attention for making “scattershot statements andpredictions” that might seem to have been borne out, Susan Hough, aseismologist in the Earthquake Hazards Program at USGS said.
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The scientific community believes that it is hard to predict earthquakes inadvance as there is no reliable knowledge to do so. “An earthquake happensvery, very quickly,” said Christine Goulet, director of the U.S. GeologicalSurvey (USGS) Earthquake Science Center. “It’s fair [to say] that at thispoint, we are not capable of predicting earthquakes at all.”
A UAE-based seismologist said “Since 1970, there were three earthquakeswith a magnitude greater than 6.0 in the region, with the largest being6.7. Now we see [recent quake] at 7.4 magnitude. So you can expect a largermagnitude or it might not happen at all because usually this energy isreleased already during the time [of the earthquake] so it’s difficult topredict when the earthquake may happen”.
