The media report that this night, December 17, an earthquake shook Kikinda slightly. At the same time, a slightly stronger earthquake was recorded in Durres, an Albanian city that was already hit by a dramatic series of earthquakes in late November and early December that killed 50 people. The rest of the region has not been dormant for weeks either - the country's earthquakes have been felt several times in Turkey, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina .
These circumstances have led many to think about how the coincidence is not accidental and that from previous earthquakes one can see in advance what is coming from below. But can earthquakes really be predictable?
Unfortunately, unlike many other, also dangerous natural disasters, such as hurricanes, storms or floods present in our country, earthquakes cannot be recorded in advance with any device and spotted before they occur. Although all earthquakes are constantly monitored in seismological stations, and in nature there are so-called non-seismic phenomena that precede them, earthquakes that occur due to the movement of tectonic plates, ie their impact time, epicenter and true strength, are difficult to predict.
Most scientists today believe that this is not a technology or method that we have not yet mastered, but that it is not even theoretically possible. Thus, the British author Robert Matthews wrote in his 1997 paper that "in any practical sense, it is impossible to predict the occurrence of an earthquake." There is a widespread view that this phenomenon may belong to the so-called self-organized critical phenomena (which physicists, intrigued by unpredictability, have been studying with passion in recent decades) where a series of minor mechanical events at some point that cannot be predicted mathematically suddenly turns into an avalanche.
However, in the seventies of the 20th century, there was a completely different opinion among many seismologists - that earthquakes can still be predicted and that it will be possible to develop a reliable alarm system in ten years.
However, later research, strong failures in forecasting, as well as controversy over the 1975 earthquake in China, which was announced a year earlier, led to this view being largely rejected in the 1990s.
Today, especially in earthquake areas, various fast alarm systems have been developed in order to react as soon as possible when an earthquake is noticed. Also, a whole scientific field has been developed that deals with earthquake risk assessments. But there is no method by which one can determine exactly when, where and how hard the next earthquake will hit.
Scientific knowledge, the development of physics, and especially meteorology, have led to the fact that although sometimes we cannot stop them, at least we can easily predict the dangers that nature presents to us. This kind of modern comfort excludes true uncertainty from natural elements, so it is difficult for the public and decision-makers to accept that there are still such terrible threats that are "inherently unpredictable".
This issue ended up in court on one occasion. Namely, after the earthquake in L'Aquila in Italy in 2009, seven seismologists were convicted because they did not announce in advance that a devastating earthquake would come after a series of minor earthquakes. On the contrary, they believed that there was no danger and the population was not evacuated. The trial has attracted a great deal of attention and reactions from scientists around the world. Eventually, in the proceedings before the higher court, the scientists were released.
Only god knows what to be happen