Predicting earthquakes is at best only a broadly accurate science with seismologists being able to forecast locations of large earthquakes.

Earthquake predictions are generally made in a timeframe of 10 to 30 years. Such warnings are more useful in ascertaining locations for big dams, power stations, roads and pipelines.

Media reports in India have suggested that the Indonesian earthquake was predicted by a team of research scholars at the Department of Applied Geology, University of Madras, a week before they occurred.

N. Venkatanathan, a seismic research scholar, claimed he had presented a report about the Indonesian earthquake to the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, on Dec. 22. Venkatanathan and his team said their prediction was off by just 98 miles off the epicenter of the Indonesia earthquake with a time difference of 28 minutes. The team used a new model that argues that when two or more planets or the sun and the moon get aligned with the earth it could affect the angular momentum of the earth. This in turn would decrease the speed of rotation of the earth, triggering an earthquake.

The researchers said in order to trigger an earthquake in one particular place, two conditions should be satisfied –– the distance of the planetary configurations and two the directions of force acting at the possible epicenter.

(Compiled from news dispatches by M. Chooki)