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Three more earthquakes hit Chile just weeks after the devastating quake that killed hundreds leading many to ask – is 2010 the year of the earthquake?
When a major earthquake hits, aftershocks within a week or so are expected – but MSNBC reports the recent bout of tremors in Chile two weeks later might not be aftershocks at all.
“They’re calling this an aftershock, but this may qualify as its own earthquake - was a magnitude 7.2 and again it rocked Chile today on the very day of the presidential inauguration there, so supposed to be a festive day, but yet another reminder of some of the problems that Chile is having in terms of the typography.”
http://msnbc.msn.com
But Chile isn’t the only country feeling the wrath of Mother Nature. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer looks at the number of earthquakes around the world in March alone – and the number might surprise you.
“Just in the past 7 days there have been 72 earthquakes with magnitudes of 5.0 or higher indicated in red on this Google map – more than half of them are aftershocks from the earthquake in Chile. Are all these earthquakes related? Most seismologists say the answer is ‘no’”
http://www.cnn.com
So why have there been so many more earthquakes in 2010? Red Orbit reports there haven’t been - it just seems like it.
“Scientists say that more people are moving into megacities that happen to be built on fault lines, and they are building substandard structures that cannot withstand earthquakes.”
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1833575/earthquakes_not_growing_just_populations/
Accuweather.com reports media coverage of the recent earthquakes contributes to the myth that earthquakes are on the rise.
“Earthquakes are not on the increase when you look over the last 10 and hundreds of years. You have brief times when you can have a very large earthquake that makes the news or large or deadly earthquakes that makes the news. People are more attune to earthquakes so coverage goes up.”
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/25904/has-the-number-of-earthquakes.asp
Other scientists disagree – Xinhua reports one scientist says his research proves otherwise.
"‘It is clear that the Earth is significantly more active over the past 15 years than the 20 years before’… His calculation shows that the moment release per year between 1995 and 2010 is about four times as large as that between 1975 and 1994.”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-03/10/c_13204200.htm
So are there really more earthquakes hitting or are we just hearing about them more?
