Can Earthquakes Be Predicted Before Hand? Is India Next After Turkey-Syria?

As the world still recovers from the devastation caused by the dangerous earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria recently, a WhatsApp forward is doing rounds that an earthquake in Delhi, India has also been predicted soon.

turkey earthquake prediction

Turkey and Syria, the heart of the world’s largest refugee population, were struck by a deadly earthquake of 7.8 magnitude a week ago in the early hours of February 6. After the most violent earthquake to hit the region in over a century killed over 25,000 people, injured hundreds more, and destroyed thousands of homes and buildings, rescue and recovery activities are underway.

As the world still recovers from the devastation caused by the dangerous earthquake, a WhatsApp forward is doing rounds that an earthquake in Delhi, India has also been predicted soon. This comes after a Dutch scientist who is said to have predicted the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, has mentioned an upcoming earthquake in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in a recent interview with an Indian media channel.

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Who Is Dutch Researcher Frank Hoogerbeets?

However, Frank Hoogerbeets, the Dutch scientist, time and again mentioned that his predictions are mere “probabilities” and not “certainties”.

On February 3, Hoogerbeets took to Twitter and wrote, “Sooner or later there will be a ~M 7.5 #earthquake in this region (South-Central Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon). #deprem.” This tweet stirred conversations and resurfaced after the predictions came out accurate merely three days later.

Back in 2015, he was the same person who had famously claimed to know the exact date when California would be struck by a deadly earthquake. Another Facebook post of Hoogerbeets predicting a deadly earthquake in Nepal came true two days later which killed around 8,800 people.

According to Hoogerbeets, he makes predictions after calculating the locations of planets and the tectonic plates and history of earthquakes and their time to make the predictions.

But, he has been facing resistance from the scientists community who have been claiming his prediction as false. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, no scientist has “ever predicted a major earthquake”. The USGS claimed that “We do not know how, and we do not expect to know how any time in the foreseeable future. USGS scientists can only calculate the probability that a significant earthquake will occur (shown on our hazard mapping) in a specific area within a certain number of years.”

USGS Response ToFrank Hoogerbeets' Earthquake Predictions

Regarding Hoogerbeets’ predictions, the USGS has claimed that Hoogerbeets is making “scattershot statements and predictions”. Susan Hough, a seismologist in the Earthquake Hazards Program at USGS said, "So, yeah, it's the stopped clock that's right twice a day, basically."

However, the location is frequently active since it is where three tectonic plates collide. Despite the tragic death toll, the powerful earthquake "wasn't a shock to any earthquake scientist", said Hough. "Turkey's a known earthquake zone. We've known about these faults, we know earthquakes this size are possible."

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In response to the scientists, Hoogerbeets shared an image of a 1959 letter to the editor in Nature magazine. “Yes, there is much resistance within the scientific community regarding the influence of the planets and the Moon. But there's no extended research that 'disproves' it. It's merely an assumption. In fact, a scientific paper in Nature suggests otherwise.”

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