Predicting Natural Disasters: Nature's Precursors to Unexpected Events

 Although earth scientists do not have sensors that can be used to clearly predict, in the short-term, natural disasters such as earthquake and tsunami, animals do.

Enormous amount of information abound to suggest that animals can feel an earthquake or tsunami coming a few days before these disasters actually happen. But unless more extensive research is carried out, such oddities will remain more a source of amazement than part of a systematic and precise method of forecasting natural disasters.

There is no doubt that scientists can now forecast a future event with greater accuracy, thanks in part to advancement in earth sciences over the last century. However, it is virtually impossible for them to predict the precise time, size, and location of any natural disaster using conventional geological methods; hence more and more scientists are now turning to nature to augment their technical skills.

No New Phenomenon

That animals can predict disasters is not a new phenomenon:

• In 373 BC historians recorded that animals, including rats, snakes and weasels, deserted the Greek city of Helice in droves just days before an earthquake devastated the city.

 

• Animals’ uncanny perception of impending calamity is not limited to natural disasters. For example, London residents paid attention to the erratic behavior of their cats and dogs before air raids by the German Luftwaffe during the World War II years.

 

• The Chinese may have been first, in modern times, to officially take advantage of this knowledge. In the 1960s they set up a group to study this phenomenon. This group was widely credited with accurately predicting in 1975, a 7.3-magnitude quake in the northeastern Liaoning province.

 

• Local farmers in western Kenya have routinely consulted the Nganyi and Wasamo communities renowned for rainfall prediction in the Lake Victoria Basin for centuries. These communities’ indigenous weather and climate prediction practices are based on indicators established over generations through keen observation of animals, plants, birds and insects. The predictions based on these indicators and human feelings support the early warnings issued by the elders to enable each community to cope with the anticipated natural disaster.

• As recent as May 12, 2008, the Chinese media was buzzing with reports of mass migrations of thousands of frogs and toads near the quake area in Sichuan province. If only the residents of this area had paid attention to this unusual phenomenon, the lives of more than 80,000 people might have been spared.

 Precursors Need Further Investigation

There are always natural precursors whose usefulness in predicting disasters remains unexplored. Incidents abound around the world where animals abandoned valleys they were grazing on shortly before an avalanche.

Even as animal behavior is widely believed to hold the most promise in forecasting, most earth scientists still depend solely on geological methods; although it is known that these cannot always clearly predict earthquakes. This is not to say that scientists should depend exclusively on these natural indicators; nor should they divert most of their energies and resources to the study of animal behavior, but this could play an important, albeit supplemental, role in predicting future disasters in the short term.

 

 

Someone once likened our natural environment to an unlimited broadcasting station, through which nature speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. Let us always stay tuned to our unlimited broadcasting station.

Sources:

Diana L. Guerrero, Seismic Sentries: "Animal Sixth Sense & Disaster", 2005