Earthquake Alert News: Earthquake Drill in India Causes Panic
An earthquake drill exercise has caused people in India to panic.
The Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority (NSDMA) has called on the public to remain calm after Twitter erupted with warnings, claiming that an 8.5 earthquake can hit Nagaland between Aug. 29 and 30.
Nagaland, a mountain state in northeast India bordering Myanmar, has been previously hit by a powerful earthquake.
It is suspected that rumors about an impending powerful earthquake to hit the region stemmed from a mock emergency exercise that the NSDMA is carrying out today, August 30, in order to educate the public how to respond in the event a major tremor happens.
Because of the panic that the misinformation has caused, with some already starting to build relief camps in Dimapur, the NSDMA has appealed to the public to remain calm and just support the earthquake drill they are conducting today. This is not the first time for rumors and predictions of earthquakes striking Northeast India to cause panic.
What some people fail to understand is that there is no definite way to foretell if an earthquake is happening, what its magnitude will be, and what places it will affect.
In fact, Charles Richter, inventor of the Richter Scale, which is used to measure the strength of an earthquake once said that those who claim that they can predict that an earthquake is happening are either fools, liars, or charlatans. After all, scientists have yet to agree on theories that, hopefully, may pave the way for methods to scientifically predict the occurrence of the natural phenomenon in the future.
"What many do not know is that there is no scientifically plausible way of predicting the occurrence of a particular earthquake. It is important to note that prediction, as people expect it, requires predicting the magnitude, timing, and location of a future earthquake, which is not currently possible," the NSDMA said.
