Roland is a seismologist in the hypothetical country of Novembria. The country i

Question

Roland is a seismologist in the hypothetical country of Novembria. The country is located along a major fault line. Earthquakes are independent random events in time (only foreshocks and aftershocks of large earthquakes are nonrandom). In Novembria, based on historical data, the probability of an earthquake occurring on a given day is 10%. Roland is briefing the President of Novembria and tells him to increase the readiness of emergency services because it has been 100 days since the last earthquake. Is this a sound recommendation? Why, or why not?

Explanation / Answer

Yes, we must recommend people to take some precautions before. we must warn people in this above situation,if we dont give any type of warning to the peole there is a great loss of lives ,economy too.If the magnitude of earthquake is more than level of destrution will be more.

As in above case it has been 100 days since last earthquake  that period is not a big span of time ,it was a foreshock if stress is developing continuously in rocks till now it may be a great magnitute earthquake is about to come.  

.But the fact is that up to now a day no scientist is able to tell the date and time of coming earthquake they can only predict a rough number by their experience also by the amount of stress developed from last earthquake till present .Each and Every scientist have their own school of thoughts for earthquake prediction they have tried a number of ways but unfortunately none of them proved right .

.There are some uncommon activities which happened before coming of an earthquake like animals behaviour -they start behaving abnormal ,dilatancy-diffusion(highly stressed crystalline rock experienced a change in volume,or dilatancy),change in Vp/Vs (ratio of these two velocities changes when rock is near the point of fracturing),Radon emission -it is radioactive and thus easily detected its short half life is (3.8 days) it makes radon level sensitive to short term fluctuation also the amount of radon gas increases in wells.

.So if we have already warned people about earthquake then great losses mitigated by preparations(cost of alarm incidental) in other case if we dont give any kind of alarm to peoples then great losses worsened by being caught off-guard.Also warnings are not harmful in both of the cases if earthquake come or not like if we alert people by alarm and there is no earthquake then there is only cost of alarm,panic and economic disrupion so thats not a big cost even if that alarm proves false.

Far away from all such warnings our country must have such infrastructure which is earthquake prone we must have such kind of buildings until and unless if earthquake is about to come we dont have to warn people and we dont have any economy loss.

In the above situation it has been 100 days since the last earthquake as i have discussed above ,it was a foreshock if stress is developing continuously great magnitute earthquake is about to come so we must warn or alert peples to prepare themselves for an upcoming unwanted event to safe their lives and property too.

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