After 6 a.m. Malaysia time on the 25th, Venezuela experienced consecutive earthquakes above magnitude 7, and not long after, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck off the northeast coast of Japan. In the US, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake occurred in remote northern California at 11:10 p.m. Malaysia time on the 24th. Are these earthquakes related?
Senior seismologist Lucy Jones from Caltech stated that, in short, there is no connection.
Jones explained that these earthquakes occurred on different faults and plate boundaries, meaning one did not trigger the other.
She said that the timing of earthquakes may coincide by chance, but their locations do not—the earthquakes each occurred on well-known active plate boundaries where stress has accumulated for decades or even centuries. In these regions, major earthquakes are a predictable part of the natural cycle, though the exact timing remains impossible to forecast.