Earthquake predictions: is it more a future project or a reality?

Chile is a south-american country that characterizes for being seismically active; thousands of earthquakes occurs in this area annually. Fortunately, most of them are practically imperceptible for the population, but history has shown us that some of the most violent and destructive tremors in the last century took place in our territory: Valdivia (1960) and Constitucion (2010.) For those reasons, it has become the subject of research for many international scientists and other amateur investigators interested in the topic of quake predictions.

After February 27, 2010, many geophysicists, seismologists, and even structural engineers decided to come to visit the place where the epicentre of the disaster was located since they saw there a great opportunity for collecting crucial data that in a future might help them to develop a system for the prediction of  precise Earth movements. In this sense, Dr. Jeff Genrich, a professor at California Institute of Technology, explained that nowadays, quake scientists are able to make predictions of seismic movements, but they can ensure the level of certainty of them. 

However, early this year, a group of four Brazilian publicists called Quake Red Alert appeared in our national scenery claiming that they had developed an effective formula based on algorithms that helps them to foresee where and when an event will happen. They used the media to forecast their finding, specially TV programs and Tweeter. The popularity of the team did not stop increasing after they succeeded in some of their predictions. Equally, they were received lots of experts'critics since nobody already knows how their method works; consequently, it is not possible to prove it empirically

Probably, neither scientists nor the Salfate's friends are convincing enough since there is no strong support for saying that it is possible or not to predict an earthquake. So it is just a matter of beliefs. The only thing that I can assure is that Chile will follow shaking, so it is important for you to have a plan in case of emergency since prevention is the only way to save lives. In this web page, you can find some pieces of advice that will help you to get prepared in case of a new quake.

To predict the unpredictable

How many lives would be saved if some people could predict the time, the place and the intensity of an earthquake before it happens? The answer is millions. Since a long time, there has been an endless discussion about if scientists can predict earthquakes before it occurs or not. Up to now, earthquake prediction is still very much an imperfect science; however, there have been some progress in the last decades.  

Even though there have existed a few precise earthquake predictions, scientist can’t asseverate they have an exact formula to know when or where is going to happen the next movement of the earth’s surface. Most of the information scientists can validate as accurate is from the prolonged observation from the changes in rocks compression, sound waves propagation, and electrical resistance of the tectonic plates. 

Besides all that, it is even worse when earthquakes are predicted by psychic or people who don’t know anything about this matter. These types of predictions only bring hysteria among people and, in some cases, a lot of monetary expenditure. This is because false alarms, cancelled alarms, and preventive evacuations not can only affect the confidence of people, but can also influence negatively the effectiveness of any kind of warning. 

Unfortunately, there isn’t a way of predicting big earthquakes, but can you imagine that, in a near future, scientists could be able to anticipate a tremor? Impossible is nothing.