Media Watch

Earthquake Forecast Feasible March 22, 2010Humans are still facing the threat of earthquakes. In 2010, massive earthquakes successively rocked the worldand people began to ponder how to cope with earthquakes in the future. Currently, there exist divergences aboutearthquake forecasts. Some believe that earthquakes can be scientifically forecasted by observing the impendinggeoelectric (HRT wave driven by tidal forces) precursors or analyzing the relationship between drought and earthquakes.These methods have been proved to be useful in practice. They are not fully adopted so far, however, due tothe obstacles in technology and policy. Others argue that instruments for accurate forecasting are unavailable. If aninaccurate forecast was adopted, but the facts proved it was wrong, the consequences would be fatal. For example, afalse forecast may cause great panic among people, which will in turn lead to social turmoil. In fact, current forecastsstill have positive effects. A prediction on possible earthquakes may alleviate the suffering brought by the disaster toa certain degree. With the help of the current technology, researchers could release earthquake forecasts so that thegovernment could take preventive measures to minimize the damage.