earthquake prediction

10-18-2005, 06:18 AM

Hi, anybody has info as to how earthquakes or for that matte any other natural disasters were predicted in previous ages?

Is there any instance of such incidences in Ramayan or Mahabharat or any other part of the scriptures?

Thx. Sadasiv

krsna · 10-21-2005, 09:30 AM

BY: ABHAY VAIDYA

Oct 20, PUNE (TIMES OF INDIA) — Do ancient eastern sciences hold the key to earthquake prediction on the basis of unusual cloud patterns?

It may seem likely as the ancient theory of 'earthquake clouds', which finds mention in the 6th century astronomermathematician Varahamihira's Brihat Samahita, is also the subject of research at the Earthquake Prediction Centre, California, and under scrutiny in Pune.

According to US-based quake researcher Zhonghao Shou, who has been using satellite imagery to predict quakes on the basis of peculiar cloud formations, ancient Chinese and Italians studied special clouds which were indicative of impending earthquakes.

A website on earthquake clouds and short term prediction maintained by him - 'Earthquake clouds and short term prediction' homepage (http://quake.exit.com), states that he had predicted "a China or Neighbour EQ Cloud" more than 24 hours before the Pakistan quake happened.

Closer to home in Pune, Vedic scholar S.N. Bhavsar has been pleading for wider, multi-disciplinary scientific investigation into chapter 32 of the Brihat Samahita, which correlates earthquakes with unusual cloud formations, underground and undersea activity, abnormal behaviour of animals and cosmic and planetary influences.

According to him, Varahamihira speaks of unusual cloud formations a week before the occurrence of a quake.

Incidentally, a Varanasi-based 'cloud reader' has also claimed that he had predicted Saturday's quake and had even alerted the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat, five days in advance.

Asked about the 'earthquake clouds' theory, Pune-based seismic researcher Arun Bapat told TNN that it could not be ruled out as changes in the earth's magnetic field before a quake could have an impact on clouds and other atmospheric phenomenon

What Cloud Shapes Predict

Ujjain-born Varahamihira (505-587 A.D.) is best known for Pancha-Siddhantika (The Five Astronomical Cannons), a compendium of Greek, Egyptian, Roman and Indian astronomy, and Brihat Samahita, which is considered a seminal text on ancient Indian astronomy and astrology.

One particular reference in the Brihat Samahita translated into English states that one week before a quake, “huge clouds resembling blue lily, bees and collyrium in colour, rumbling pleasantly and shining with flashes of lightning, will pour down slender lines of water resembling sharp clouds. An earthquake of this circle will kill those that are dependent on the seas and rivers; and it will lead to excessive rains”.

Incidentally, while a “heavy ice-rain” disrupted rescue efforts in Pakistan, similar rains were experienced after the devastating Latur earthquake too in 1993. According to Shou, earthquake clouds are formed when underground water is converted into water vapour by the heat generated in the area of the epicentre, a fault rock which is undergoing constant stress and friction. Depending on the manner in which this vapour escapes to the surface and rises through the atmosphere, it forms a cloud, taking peculiar shapes of “a snake, wave, feather or a lantern”.

Bhavsar who has done doctoral work on the Vedas and worked at the Deccan College, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and University of Pune's department of space sciences, emphasised that natural phenomena are “apparently discrete but otherwise continuous” and require a non-linear, multi-modal and multivariate approach for their understanding.