Predicting major earthquakes - success for European researchers
The second EU-Japan workshop on seismic risk and understanding the crustal processes that occur during destructive earthquakes will hear of the success of the PRENLAB project which successfully predicted the major earthquake in Iceland in November 1998. This major scientific breakthrough appears to offer the possibility to provide early warning of major earthquakes, by far the most deadly of all natural disasters with over 340,000 killed by earthquakes since 1975. On 26 and 27 October 1998, the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland - partners in the EU-funded PRENLAB project - warned the Icelandic authorities to expect an 'unspecified large earthquake "soon"'. By 10 November, the researchers were warning Iceland to brace itself for an earthquake of a magnitude of 5 or 6 on the Richter Scale. Just three days later, an earthquake measuring 5 on the Richter scale made Icelandic ground tremble within 2km of the research station where the observations were made. The PRENLAB project is just one being presented at the workshop being held in Reykjavik, Iceland, on 24 and 25 June. The workshop will aim to develop EU-Japanese cooperation further, present the state-of-the-art in both the EU and Japan, and identify areas for future cooperation.