Shafaq News Claims US Geology Agency warns of “Very large earthquake” to hit Iraq, Gulf Region
Update: The UAE National Center of Meteorology & Seismology (NCMS) issued a statement today in which it denied rumors about the United States Geological Survey (USGS) predicting a powerful earthquake that will hit the region during the period between April 25 and 30.
“This is just a rumor. Earthquakes cannot be predicted,” NCMS said.
On April 19 Shafaq News published a warning reportedly issued by the USGS: Earthquake Warning
The following should also be published in addition to the comment below in order to reduce some of the misinterpretations of a potential large earthquake that have been published on Shafaq News and Iraq Updates:
“I must comment on this as this applies to my profession. Please consider that the best science cannot yet come up with a reliable prediction (specification of time, location and magnitude) of an earthquake. Given the large earthquake of yesterday, the occurrence of aftershocks are to be expected. However, the size of these aftershocks matters which can be larger than the main shock. We do not know this beforehand. In anycase, I looked through the link and there is no information on their “statistical methods” that I could find. My only request is not to misinterpret this or other information. There is no “Center for Global Earthquake Reporting – مرکزه لرزه نگاری جهانی” as implied in the Status; there is no reliable way of predicting earthquakes; and the best practice is to expect aftershocks on the fault where the earthquake occurred yesterday over the next few days or weeks.” – Dr. B. Khazai, CEDIM, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Shafaq News warned, on Thursday, the Gulf States, including Iraq and some in East Asia from an earthquake “very large” in the period between 25 to 30 this April, as hinted that the earthquake will exceed the Richter scale, which is up to 9 degrees or 10 degrees.
The agency said a USGS report claimed “a huge plate in the bottom of the ground in a depth of 20 km will move southeast Iran to the Gulf States on the one hand southern Iran, as well as move a plate from the east to the countries of Pakistan, India and East Asia may occur earthquake very large.”
The agency assured “The preliminary magnitude of the quake is estimated at 10 degrees on the Richter scale, and can destroy an entire region and buried, including under the bottom of the earth.”
The agency warned “in southern Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and the central and eastern Saudi Arabia, and the north-east of Amman aftershocks strongly 5 degrees which is capable of destroying the infrastructure, including roads, streets, bridges, stations and towers, electricity, telecommunications, media, Internet and high-rise towers and all public facilities.”
The agency added that Japan is exposed to serious tsunami.
An earthquake and 80 aftershocks had hit the area south-west of Iran recently reached a degree of about 8 on the Richter scale and killed and hundreds injured according to official Iranian sources.