Close interval between two quakes coincidental: Experts

The quake comes in less than few hours after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake killed as many as 73 people in central Italy. Earlier on Wednesday, a powerful earthquake devastated a string of mountainous towns in central Italy, trapping residents under piles of rubble.  

Hours after Italy, it was Myanmar which was struck by 6.8-magnitude earthquake, with initial reports suggesting ancient temples at the old city of Bagan had been severely damaged. The site, which is often compared to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, holds more than 2,000 temples and pagodas, some of them centuries old. The earthquake was so intense that it was felt in Bangkok, about 620 miles (1,000km) away. 

Many would be tempted to draw a connection between the two quakes. However, science has its own explanation that suggests the timing of these two events is pure coincidental. According to seismologists, large earthquakes can, and usually do, lead to more quakes — but only in the same region, along or near the same fault. These are called aftershocks. Sometimes a large quake can be linked to a smaller quake that occurred earlier, called a foreshock. It’s difficult to see any relation because Italy and Myanmar are very distant from each other — about 4358.4 nautical miles. 

Earlier in April, Japan and Ecuador were devastated by powerful earthquakes, but there was no evidence of a link between those events on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean. Senior seismologist and mathematical geophysicist at the Australian National University, Professor Phil Cummins said earthquakes occur when the stress on a tectonic plate overcomes the friction holding it in place. 

“Things happen at random — you can get clusters of earthquakes that might appear connected but actually they aren’t. An earthquake changes the stress field in a particular area, so it might trigger further earthquakes or it might inhibit them — it’s a complicated relationship that depends on the geometry of the fault that ruptured as well as the geometry of nearby faults,” he is reported to have said this.