California 9.8 Earthquake Prediction

California Earthquake Prediction: Experts Rubbish Claim that Massive 9.8 Tremor Will Hit West Coast on 28 May

By Johnlee Varghese

Earthquake fears were stoked in California by a rather dubious viral video that 'predicted' a powerful tremor stronger than what hit Nepal will rattle America's west coast on 28 May, Thursday.
However, experts in the scientific world have completely rubbished the claim as unfounded.
The 24-minute-long earthquake prophecy video, which has now been watched by over half-a-million people, predicts a massive 9.8 earthquake will hit California at 4pm local time on 28 May.
The clip published by Frank Hoogerbeets, the founder and president of Ditrianum Media, claims he was able to assess the 'horrific' event using a computer program called Solar System Scope.
The Huffington Post UK citing Hoogerbeets noted that his theory was based on the calculation that the 9.8 quake will strike when "no less than five planetary alignments will converge with the Earth."
He claims that even Nostradamus, the famous French apothecary and purported prophet, has made similar reference to the critical planetary positions, before an impending calamity.

Hoogerbeets, recently, once again urged people to take precaution. "I advice people in critical areas along fault lines in the world to be on extra alert around May 28. Be prepared. Have an escape plan ready," he said on his Twitter account.
However, American science blogger Phil Plait has completely rubbished the claim a total 'baloney.'
Plait in an article published in Slate wrote: "First, there is simply no way an alignment of planets can cause an earthquake on Earth. It's literally impossible. I've done the math on this before; the maximum combined gravity of all the planets under ideal conditions is still far less than the gravitational influence of the Moon on the Earth, and the Moon at very best has an extremely weak influence on earthquakes."
Noting that the claim made by Frank Hoogerbeets was unfounded, Plait added: "This all stems from a video by someone who I believe is sincere but also profoundly wrong on essentially every level. It's been picked up by various credulous places online, then spread around by people who haven't been properly skeptical about it."
Rumours of the massive quake once again gained prominence especially after a 3.0 earthquake was reported on Tuesday morning 12 miles from Hamilton City. According to the US Geological Survey, the epicentre was 12 miles from Chico and 18 miles from Paradise, LA Times had reported.

 REFUTE

9.8 Earthquake Prediction Is a Joke

By Dennis Romero

A planetary alignment of Venus and Mercury will not cause a 9.8 earthquake on the West Coast of North America at 4 p.m. Thursday.
The prediction comes from a conspiracy theorist in the Netherlands, who posted a video (below) that lays out his argument that a historic temblor will strike our part of the world. He cites Nostradamus — so, yeah.
"There would be a very very large earthquake or some kind of major event with very much energy release," the video's narrator says.
California's most-potent fault can't even produce a 9.8, earth scientists say. And "planetary alignment" has little effect on the behavior of Earth.
"The idea that planetary alignments might cause earthquakes is bunk," says Preston Dyches of Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "The gravitational forces involved are not of a magnitude great enough to trigger geologic activity on Earth."
On top of that, we've had our best scientists working on earthquake prediction for years. It's just not happening yet.
California does have a prototype warning system that can sound an alarm before a shaker in progress reaches big cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. But it only offers seconds worth of warning.
"We've been trying for years," says Egill Hauksson, a seismologist at Pasadena's Caltech. "We can't predict, time place and magnitude for individual earthquakes."

Plus, as far science knows, California can't do a magnitude 9.8.
"The biggest we could have is an 8.3 that would rupture the whole length of the San Andreas fault," Hauksson said. "More likely is a 7.9."
That's reassuring.
By the way, the earthquake disaster movie San Andreas is scheduled to shake up theaters Friday. Any self-respecting conspiracy theorist would focus on the beneficial timing of this outlandish prediction rather than on the prediction itself.

Personal Comment

First of all, planetary alignment has NOTHING to do with any natural disaster on earth, unless it has something to do about sunlight. Even I, who does not have any special knowledge about astronomy or geography, know that. Also, why California? I think this idea came out from the fact that California will have a severe earthquake within  30 years, and I support this theory. But don't just stick everything about earthquake to California.It scares us who have our family and home at Calif. In fact, the theory about a large earthquake in California was quite unreliable because it started as within 15 years and changed to 30 years. I'm more surprised about this huge effect a conspiracy theorist just made and how people can believe such thing.