An unpleasant reminder
Today is exactly four month after the 8.0Ms earthquake which killed more than 80,000 people in Sichuan Province, China.
Aftershocks were seem to be finally dying out in just few weeks ago. But If a demon like creature really exist, it sure knows when to come out - there were at least 3 M 4.0+ aftershocks recorded since yesterday, the largest one happened early this morning, measured Mb 5.4 in northern part of Sichuan Province.
And my friends and family members in the province also reported countless number of small shocks - none of them were destructive, but sure reminded people what was happened four month ago.
Those aftershocks really worried me. The epicentre of one aftershock yesterday was only about 50km from the provincial capital, Chengdu(pop ~11m. , 4m. metropolitan), being the closest so far(it was first reported of being only 30km from Chengdu).
If a strong aftershock happens in the area the consequences would be catastrophic ... given that most people are tired of aftershocks and no one bothers to walk out of buildings when an aftershock happens.
The biggest one, Mb 5.4 this morning, depth of that earthquake was only 6 km below the surface - it's an extremely shallow yet relatively strong quake, and I'm glad that the magnitude wasn't anything higher than 5.5. The region just cannot bear that kind of shallow quake again.
Unfortunately although the big quake released a lot of stress on one fault it probably increased stress on neighbouring faults. Earthquakes are horrible beasts which do often seem to come in swarms. I hope and pray your loved ones stay safe.