LISTEN TO ANIMALS TO PREDICT EARTHQUAKES, SAY CHINESE SURVIVORS
Well before the Chinese city of Tangshan was destroyed by an earthquake 32 years
ago, the coming disaster was loudly preceded by strange animal behavior and other
bizarre signals that survivors wish they all heeded.
“The animals were trying to tell us something. If only we knew that, not so many people
would have died,” said Fu Chi, a retired farmer, whose wife was among the estimated
240000 who perished in Tangshan’s quake on July 28, 1976 in China.
Several survivals of this disaster in this northern city said the toll in this month’s quake
in south-western China could have been minimized if such clues had been validated.
Chinese media reports and internet blogs have buzzed with the reports of mass
migration of thousands of frogs and toads near the quake region in Sichuan province
just before the May 12 disaster, which left more than 80000 people dead or missing.
There is little dispute among scientists that animals can predict earthquakes, possibly
through sensitivity to pressure waves.
“Physical and chemical stimuli emanate from the earth prior to an earthquake and
animals can probably sense that,” said P. George, a chemist and oceanographer.
“Scientists can detect heightened earthquake risks by monitoring build ups of
seismological pressure, ground tilting and magnetic field changes, although no quake
has ever been accurately predicted this way,” he said. Fu, then a farmer on the city’s
outskirts, said dogs erupted in wild howling and before the quake struck at 3.42 am.
Mice and snakes skittered around crazily in the open. Horses and cows kicked at their
stable walls.
-DR. NAVRAJ SINGH SANDHU, www.navraj@gmail.com