EARTHQUAKE FORECASTS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5074, 12 January 1927, Page 3

EARTHQUAKE FORECASTS

COMMENT BY DR. C. R ADAMS. A WASTE OF TIME. A comment has been made by the Government Seismologist, Dr. C. E. Adams, to the forecasts made by Professor Bendandi, an Italian seismologist, that 1927 will be a year of severe earthquake disturbances. Dr. Adams said that such prophecies had no scientific foundation ; the work of seismologists did not lie in the realm of prophecy. A scanning of past records failed o show why any earthquakes should have been' anticipated. Earthquakes being primarily due to the sudden release of gradually accumulated strain, it hardly seemed likely that any warning «of the release would be given. “I do not know the professor who is mentjoned as having made this prophecy,” Dr. Adams went on to say, “but we are not in touch to any great extent with Italian seismiologists. Our own policy with regard to earthquakes is to observe and lo record, but not to waste ime in , making prophecies.” Dr. Adams recalled the prophecy which was made by he late Dr. Omori, of Japan, in 1922, after the disastrous earthquake there in that year. Because the country had suffered a severe earthquake at that time he had said Japan would be immune from further shocks. He went to Australia, and was there in 1923, when Japan was shaken by the most disastrous earthquake in its history. This disposed of any attempts at accurate prediction in this direction. Omori was a careful and eminently systematic seismologist. But even he did not make such a conclusive and secure prediction as. the cabled message from Rome. He believed he was correct in assuming that the strain had been released in certain districts, and that it would take a very long time for it to re-accumulate; and, indeed, oh these grounds it seemed that Japan would be free from shocks for many /years from that time.