Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Tectonic Activity

Woken this morning by a 6.4 in Kaohsiung which the weather Bureau reports was followed by no less than 14 aftershocks: (From the CWB Site)


2010/03/04 10:434.1
2010/03/04 10:343.9
2010/03/04 10:324.2
2010/03/04 10:304.1
2010/03/04 10:184.2
2010/03/04 10:013.9
2010/03/04 09:573.7
2010/03/04 09:033.6
2010/03/04 09:004.0
2010/03/04 08:543.4
2010/03/04 08:543.9
2010/03/04 08:433.8
2010/03/04 08:244.8
2010/03/04 08:186.4


I don't know enough about geology or tectonic plates to arrive at any solid conclusions so I can't back this up but I wonder if the large quakes in Haiti and Chile are causing knock-on shocks at the plate borders?  I hope I'm wrong but I have a feeling we may see more large tectonic activity in the near future.What's really tragic is that it is often only a large earthquake that can reveal the integrity, or lack of it, of the construction industry, often at the expense of people's lives.