Hyderabad: Prediction of earthquake is often vague, says scientist

Hyderabad: Questions have been raised over whether an earthquake can be predicted in advance or not. While a city researcher Siva Sitaram who developed an EQ model said that it can be predicted two weeks in advance, many scientists feel that prediction of earthquake has never been achieved successfully. They claim that predications can often be vague. The Hans presents the 'Other View.'

Speaking to The Hans India, Dr N Purnachandra Rao, Chief Scientist and Seismologist, National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad and former Director, NCESS, Trivandrum said that certain elements of prediction are possible, but we cannot exactly predict earthquakes. Basically, an earthquake occurs due to the movement in the tectonic plates. When the edges of the plates get stuck due to friction and the stress on the edge overcomes the friction, there is an earthquake that releases energy in waves that travel through the earth's crust and cause shaking.

However, we cannot predict over what would be the magnitude of the earthquake. One can only predict the region where the earthquake is going to happen and which area would be more and less impacted. The exact date and time cannot be predicted, said Purnachandra." Explaining about any research project been taken up to predict earthquakes, the scientist said that there are few parameters called earthquake precursors (changes that occur before an EQ) upon which researchers are studying the water levels changes and foreshock activity (indication before an EQ occurs). We cannot say its certainty but studies are going on. People have predicted earthquakes in the past, for instance in 1975, Chinese Seismologists predicted that at Haicheng EQ would occur and that turned out to be the right prediction. But just one year after this EQ, there was a massive EQ that struck Tangshan, China (M7.7) which no one predicted.

Stretching over the recent Turkey earthquake prediction, the Chief Scientist said that a researcher predicated about the Turkey EQ three days before it occurred but that was not relevant. He only predicted by studying the planetary condition of earth after the past earthquake.