On 10 November, a final warning was issued that there would be an earthquake of magnitude 5 soon or, if stress kept increasing, a magnitude 6 within two months. Three days later, a magnitude 5 earthquake was recorded in Iceland as forecast within 2 km of the station where the observations were made. Dr Anver Ghazi, European Commission and Mr Yohta Kumaki, Science and Technology Agency, Tokyo 1 .
Earthquakes are by far the most deadly natural disasters in the world.
Since 1975, they have killed over 340,000 people. Since the beginning of this century, they have caused an average of 20,000 deaths each year. Unfortunately, until recently, there was no reliable scientific technique for forecasting forthcoming earthquakes. The technique is based on the measurement of the relative retardation of seismic waves which changes during the period prior to an earthquake. Because the technique requires the installation of an appropriate array of seismometers, only a few predictions have been made so far.