{"id":375629,"date":"2026-06-26T09:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/375629\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T09:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:04:22","slug":"experts-say-three-recent-powerful-earthquakes-are-not-related-earthquakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/375629\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts say three recent powerful earthquakes are not related | Earthquakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck a rural part of northern California<\/a> on Wednesday. Hours later, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the northern coast of Japan<\/a> and two powerful earthquakes rocked Venezuela<\/a> in a devastating mass casualty event.<\/p>\n

The tremors happened in the span of eight hours, prompting online speculation over whether they were related.<\/p>\n

Experts say they were not.<\/p>\n

The episodes do share a similarity in that they all occurred along well-known plate boundaries with high seismic hazard, according to William Barnhart, assistant coordinator for the US Geological Survey\u2019s earthquake hazards program. But their timing on Wednesday was simply a coincidence.<\/p>\n

A man stands outside a building with a wall damaged by an earthquake in Hachinohe, Aomori prefecture, Japan, on 25 June 2026. Photograph: KYODO\/Reuters<\/p>\n

\u201cEarthquakes happen every day all over the world. Most of them happen far from people,\u201d Barnhart said. \u201cYesterday was just a very peculiar day where you had a couple of fairly significant earthquakes happen in areas where people felt them.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is possible for a large earthquake to trigger tremors in other parts of the world, Barnhart said.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s unusual that such a cascade effect would happen thousands and thousands of miles apart, according to Martin Hudson, an adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the last 100 years of earthquakes, we\u2019ve never seen earthquakes this far apart be related,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In comparison, the initial 7.1-magnitude temblor in Venezuela<\/a> likely triggered the ensuing 7.5-magnitude quake because of their proximity.<\/p>\n

Redwood Valley Market owner Alex Chehada looks at damage after an earthquake in Redwood Valley, California, on 24 June 2026. Photograph: Kent Porter\/The Press Democrat\/AP<\/p>\n

\u201cA fault might be ready to go, and then if there\u2019s a nearby earthquake, it causes it to tip over the edge,\u201d Hudson said.<\/p>\n

In any given year, there are dozens of earthquakes greater than magnitude 7 across the world, Hudson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a terrible happenstance that it was in a populated area in Venezuela,\u201d he added of the ongoing calamity, where at least 188 people have been confirmed dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck a rural part of northern California on Wednesday. Hours later, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-375629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}