Experts say three recent powerful earthquakes are not related

A 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck a rural part of northern California on Wednesday. Hours later, a 7.2-magnitude quake hit the northern coast of Japan and two powerful earthquakes rocked Venezuela in a devastating mass casualty event. The tremors happened in the span of eight hours, prompting online speculation over whether they were related.

Experts say they were not. The episodes do share a similarity in that they all occurred along well-known plate boundaries with high seismic hazard, William Barnhart, assistant coordinator for the US Geological Survey’s earthquake hazards program, said. But their timing on Wednesday was simply a coincidence.

"Earthquakes happen every day all over the world. Most of them happen far from people," Barnhart said. "Yesterday was just a very peculiar day where you had a couple of fairly significant earthquakes happen in areas where people felt them." It is possible for a large earthquake to trigger tremors in other parts of the world, Barnhart said.

United States, Japan, Venezuela, northern California; northern coast of Japan

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