by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Chief International Correspondent
CARACAS/TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – A series of major earthquakes shook different parts of the world within less than 24 hours, killing nearly 200 people, injuring many more, and briefly raising fears of a wider global seismic crisis.
The deadliest disaster struck Venezuela, where two powerful earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude hit just 39 seconds apart late Wednesday. Authorities said at least 188 people were killed and 1,500 injured after buildings collapsed, Caracas’s international airport closed, and a tsunami warning for parts of the Caribbean was later lifted.
Hours later, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck offshore near Japan’s northeastern coast, close to the Iwate and Aomori prefectures on Honshu Island.
Later the same day, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake rattled Northern California, causing scattered power outages and reports of minor injuries. Although smaller than the other two events, it was among the strongest tremors felt in parts of Northern California in recent decades.
EARTHQUAKES FAR APART
While the timing prompted concern about a possible global seismic chain reaction, several experts stressed the earthquakes occurred in separate tectonic settings thousands of miles (thousands of kilometers) apart.
William Barnhart, a geodesist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), said there is no indication the earthquakes in Japan or California transferred stress to the tectonic plates beneath Venezuela.
Instead, he said the first Venezuelan earthquake was likely a foreshock that triggered the stronger 7.5-magnitude mainshock just 39 seconds later.
Martin Hudson, a geotechnical engineering expert at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), agreed, saying the shaking from the first earthquake likely increased stress on a nearby fault that was already close to rupturing.
DIFFERENT TECTONIC SETTINGS
Scientists say such “doublet earthquakes” are becoming better understood as monitoring technology improves. Similar paired earthquakes have been documented elsewhere, including California’s 1992 Landers earthquake sequence.
The Venezuelan earthquakes occurred where the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates slide horizontally past one another in what seismologists describe as a strike-slip fault system.
Japan’s earthquake, by contrast, was a thrust-fault event, in which one tectonic plate is forced beneath another. Such earthquakes are common along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the vast horseshoe-shaped belt stretching around the Pacific Ocean that produces roughly 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes.
California’s earthquake occurred along a separate fault system associated with the boundary between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates.
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS URGED
Japanese authorities said the offshore quake caused no significant tsunami and did not disrupt nearby nuclear power plants.
Yet dozens of aftershocks continued to shake Venezuela overnight, while tremors were also felt on the nearby Caribbean island of Curaçao.
Seismologists said the succession of earthquakes serves as a reminder that Earth constantly releases energy along active fault lines, even when events appear to occur almost simultaneously.
They stressed that nations located on or near active tectonic boundaries—particularly those along the Pacific Ring of Fire, including Japan, the U.S. West Coast, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chile, Mexico, and New Zealand—must continue “strengthening disaster preparedness.”
Experts have urged authorities to ensure resilient infrastructure and early warning systems to help reduce the loss of life when major earthquakes strike.
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