Nature broadcasts its own warnings of earthquakes that could help save thousands of lives, scientists reveal today.
They have detected pulses of radio waves beamed from the ground days before recent quakes plus similar disturbances in the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
The discovery raises the hope that authorities could be given time to arrange evacuations of danger areas before future disasters strike.
“There are definitely hints of something happening in the region of earthquakes before the Earth moves,” says expert Colin Price, of Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Price and colleagues believe the broadcasts happen when stresses deep underground cause rocks containing magnetic particles to fracture, generating ultra-low frequency radio waves.
Research groups ar enow tunnelling underground to pick up pulses and using satellites to measure radio disturbances in the ionosphere, 50 to 625 miles above us, New Scientist reports today.
Japanese scientists say they detected radio pulses two days before a magnitude 5.5 quake struck a region 80 miles away.