Search-and-rescue teams survey the rubble in Amatrice, Italy, following a magnitude 6.2 earthquake.
Are the Earthquakes in Myanmar and Italy Related?
We asked two experts to explain whether the dual disasters were isolated events.
We asked two experts to explain whether it's ever possible for one earthquake to trigger another. John Bellini is a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center and Michael Steckler is a geophysicist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.
A large earthquake, something like an 8 or a 9, or even a large 7, can trigger small things nearby, but not on the other side of the world.
The number and size of aftershocks are partially dependent on the size of the original earthquake. It takes some time for the Earth to settle down after the initial shock; aftershocks are really "adjustment" shocks.
These regions will likely experience aftershocks for weeks. For a magnitude
