India Uncut

Arun Bapat, the well-known seismologist, has an article today in the Indian Express in which he talks about the lessons we can learn from previous earthquakes. The bit that I found most interesting:

The long-term effect of changes in the geomagnetic field is also seen in telephone communications. The geomagnetic field starts changing about six to eight months before the occurrence of an earthquake. Take the data I had collected on the Latur and Andamans temblors. Though the number of telephone connections remained more or less same in the area, the number of complaints went on increasing. At Latur there were, say, 100 complaints per month from January to April 1993. Subsequently, the figure kept increasing — to touch 150 in September 1993. The Latur earthquake occurred on September 29, 1993. Similar was the case in the Andamans. If data from telephone exchanges in seismically vulnerable areas are examined, some useful clues may emerge. These were landlines. Mobile telephony may provide even more accurate clues. It was seen in Gujarat, the Andamans and in locations in Turkey, Japan and China that — about 50 to 100 minutes before the earthquake — mobile phones started to malfunction even though there were no electrical, electronic or mechanical failures in telephone exchanges.

Strange animal behaviour is also considered an indicator of earthquakes, but this is something that is always noticed only in hindsight. No one collects data on how animals are behaving through the day. Mobile malfunctions, on the other hand, can be monitored in future, and if a trend does emerge, we might be able to actually predict earthquakes. You will, of course, need large sample sizes and clear trends to make any use of this information.

So the next time your boss bothers you when you're chilling out at a pub, make spluttering noises and hang up. He might just jump up and leave the building then.