MIAMI: Haiti, Chile, New Zealand, and now Japan. Powerful killer earthquakes have rocked one corner of the globe to another in just over a year but scientists warn against looking for a Doomsday scenario in this recurring ripple of big earthshaking natural disasters.
"There's nothing going on out of the ordinary,"
Daniel McNamara, a research seismologist with the US Geological Survey, said. He said earthquakes happened "all the time", with small tremors occurring in the tens of thousands each year.
The 8.9 magnitude Japan quake comes after a January 2010 7.0 magnitude jolt that devastated Haiti's capital and killed more than 300,000 people, followed by an 8.8 magnitude quake the next month in Chile that killed more than 500 people. This year, a Febraury 22 quake measuring 6.3 magnitude ravaged Christchurch, New Zealand.
"We've just had bad luck, they've occurred in places near to centers of population and then it becomes news,"
said Grenville Draper, professor of geosciences at the Earth and Environment Department of Florida International University. He and McNamara said it was human nature to try to assign patterns to events, including catastrophes.
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