Social media is abuzz with the claims made by Dutch researcher Frank Hoogerbeets that a 7-magnitude earthquake might hit Pakistan and surrounding 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 than 10,000 deaths up till now in Turkiye and Syria, predicted the earthquake in a 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 in southern Turkiye. Thousands were killed in destruction brought about by this tremor that hit at 4.17 am (local time).
Noticing the popularity of the claims, the U.S. Geological Survey said no scientist had "ever predicted a major earthquake”. It's the latest case of someone gaining attention for making "scattershot statements and predictions" that might seem to have been borne out, Susan Hough, a seismologist in the Earthquake Hazards Program at USGS said.
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The scientific community believes that it is hard to predict earthquakes in advance as there is no reliable knowledge to do so. “An earthquake happens very, very quickly,” said Christine Goulet, director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earthquake Science Center. “It’s fair [to say] that at this point, we are not capable of predicting earthquakes at all.”
A UAE-based seismologist said “Since 1970, there were three earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 6.0 in the region, with the largest being 6.7. Now we see [recent quake] at 7.4 magnitude. So you can expect a larger magnitude or it might not happen at all because usually this energy is released already during the time [of the earthquake] so it’s difficult to predict when the earthquake may happen”.