An earthquake is a natural phenomenon, one that can leave inexplicable devastation in its wake. As with a few other destructive natural phenomena such as cyclones, it would certainly be useful to be alerted about an earthquake beforehand. Sure, there are earthquake early warning systems. But they don’t “predict earthquakes, they just “detect ground motion as soon as an earthquake begins and quickly send alerts that a tremor is on its way, giving people crucial seconds to prepare”. But there’s been so much talk about animals being able to “predict” earthquakes. Is that true? Come, let’s find out. Now and then we hear about strange animal behaviour just before an earthquake – animals or pets fleeing the place or getting restless. A U.S. earthquake in 1989 is said to have been “predicted” by a geologist who gathered data to show that “a larger than usual number of household pets were listed as missing in the week or so before” the quake. However, only a year before that a study spanning three years had showed no correlation between missing pets and earthquake. Meanwhile, as recently as 2015, a new study by research scientist Friedemann T. Freund and team said that “animals in Peru’s Yanachaga National Park basically disappeared in the weeks leading up to a 7.0 magnitude quake in the region in 2011”. However, Freund’s long-held theory – that there are changes to the magnetic field before a quake that animals can sense – has been questioned by the scientific community. There’s something that animals may be able to sense, though-seismic waves.
The first of an earthquake’s seismic waves is the P-wave (pressure wave), which arrives before the S-wave, the secondary, shaking wave. Animals may sense the P-wave, which could explain their unusual behaviour. Further, some animals, such as elephants, are said to perceive low-frequency sound waves and vibrations from foreshocks that humans cannot detect. A most recent study, conducted on a farm in an earthquake-prone region in Italy and published last year, recorded the movements of cows, sheep, and dogs over several months. It discovered that “the animals were unusually restless in the hours before the earthquakes. The closer the animals were to the epicentre of the impending quake, the earlier they started behaving unusually”. The study states that the effect was clear only because all the animals were studied together, and may not have been easy to spot at an individual level. While studies show that animals can perhaps sense an impending earthquake, it is said that extensive research across geographies is required to understand this better.
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