A message, claiming to be from American space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), warning of an impending earthquake in New Delhi has been doing the rounds on WhatsApp. And well-meaning gullible folks elsewhere have been anxiously forwarding it to their relatives and friends in the national capital, asking them to pack and leave ahead of the doom day.
The message kicks off by saying the NASA has predicted that a massive earthquake in the national capital of “9.1 or 9.2 Rector's scale”. Seriously? Rector scale? Is that some kind of a new scale devised by the priests to measure god’s wrath?
Even if we assume it’s a typo, do you think the most advanced space agency in the world doesn’t know that Richter Scale is not used anymore, except for small earthquakes recorded locally? For all other earthquakes, the moment magnitude scale is a more accurate measure of the earthquake size.
The message reads:
"According to NASA, the biggest earthquake will hit Delhi soon. The Rector's Scale is 9.1 or may be 9.2. Date has not cleared yet but it may occur in Between 7th of April to 15th April. Loss of life has declared in lakhs."
The message also warned the people that the epicenter of the earthquake would be Gurugram.
"This is the biggest earthquake that may occur in Delhi NCR. Spread to all your relatives or friends who stay in Delhi NCR. This earthquake will be the largest as it covers the areas like Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan to Bihar. In Pakistan Rector's Scale would be 4-4.2 maximum. If possible move at least for a week from Delhi NCR. Government will take action very soon on this to save life of people. For More Details www.nasaalert.com," the rest of the message read.
Fact Check:
The NASA did not issue any warning about an earthquake hitting India in April 2018, because no earthquake prediction exists (although seismic alarms can and do save lives, but that is a matter of seconds rather than days or weeks).
As the United States Geological Survey explains: “Neither the USGS nor any other scientists have ever predicted a major earthquake. We do not know how, and we do not expect to know how any time in the foreseeable future.
Apart from the bad English of the message, the viral message also attributes the information to a fake website of NASA.
Predicting earthquakes is a touchy issue for scientists, in part because it has long been a game of con artists and pseudoscientists who claim to be able to forecast earthquakes.
But scientists do have a good sense of where earthquakes could happen. Using historical records and geologic measurements, they can highlight potential seismic hot spots and the kinds of tremors they face.
The National Centre for Seismology’s Director Dr. Vineet Gehlot had warned of a major earthquake of magnitude 8 to hit Uttarakhand's Garhwal Himalaya in the upcoming days. He also warned that the earthquake will have a widespread damage throughout the northern India.
"Statistics indicate there is a possibility of a major earthquake in Uttarakhand in future. Reasons to believe so, no major earthquake has struck region in past 500-700 years and energy required to build major earthquakes is accumulating since 100 years," Director of National Centre for Seismology Dr. Vineet Gehlot told ANI.
The report said, "there has been no major tremor reported in the northern region of India for the last 600 years, but as minor earthquakes being witnessed in this area are releasing a small amount of energy. And, the energy being released from these small termors may result to a severe jolt."
Time magazine, in a story published in November 2017, said “scientists predict 2018 will be a bad year for earthquakes”. “Now, however, a new study suggests that we may want to brace for a surge of quakes in the year ahead, and the reason for the danger is an unlikely one: the rotation of the Earth has slowed slightly.”
“While accurately forecasting earthquakes is impossible, a backward look through the seismic record allows geologists to detect some distinct patterns, it said. “In the new study — which was presented at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, in Seattle, and published in Geophysical Research Letters — geologists Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Rebecca Bendick of the University of Montana, tracked the incidence of magnitude 7 or greater earthquakes worldwide since 1900.”