Storms can cause earthquakes

Scientists found evidence that some strong earthquakes occurred after big storms. This shows that heavy rain and landslides can cause seismic.

'Heavy rains may be the cause of seismic events. They cause landslides and severe erosion, causing material on the earth's surface to shift. That situation causes soil movement along the milling lines , 'AFP quoted Shimon Wdowinski, a professor of marine geography and geography at Miami University in the US.

Wdowinski and a colleague from Florida International University analyzed data from major earthquakes - with a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale - in Haiti and the island of Taiwan for the past 50 years to understand the relationship between rain , seismic storm. They found that if a strong and persistent storm appeared in a certain area, strong earthquakes would occur within the next four years, AFP said.

Soldiers and police help people evacuate a village
Central Taiwan when Typhoon Morakot landed in August 2009. (Photo: AP)

In some recent cases, earthquakes occurred earlier. For example, when Typhoon Morakot landed on Taiwan island in 2009, a 6.2-magnitude seismic occurred in the same year and a 6.4-magnitude earthquake occurred in 2010.

Marakot storm left 614 people dead and 75 people missing, burying many villages and dumping a huge amount of rainwater (3m) into Taiwan island. It is considered one of the most terrible disasters in the history of the island.

In 1996, Hurricane Herb entered mainland China and Taiwan Island, leaving several hundred people dead. Two years after a magnitude 6.2 earthquake occurred. Another earthquake, with an intensity of 7.6 on the Richter scale, appears.

The team also investigated the massive earthquake in Haiti in January 2010 - a disaster that killed more than 225,000 people and a seventh of Haiti's population lost their homes. They found it happened a year and a half after four storms struck the island within 45 days.

According to the research hypothesis, heavy rains and landslides make a large amount of soil and rock move away from the area above the milling line.'Since it is no longer pressed above, the compressive force below the milling line is released, causing seismic,' Wdowinski explained.

Wdowinski's theory is only suitable for areas where milling lines lie on the inclined plane, such as the mountains - where water can push soil out of deep cracks in the rock layer of the earth's crust.

Wdowinski and his colleagues will continue to study weather conditions in the Philippines and Japan to see whether the link between storms and earthquakes exists in the two countries.