China quake was very unusual: US scientists

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The devastating earthquake in China was the unexpected result of a seismological oddity and is likely to occur in the area only about once in every 2,000 to 10,000 years, US geoscientists said Monday.

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had studied the region around Sichuan province, where the 7.9 magnitude quake hit on May 12, for more than two decades but found nothing to warn them of a major quake.

In a study published in the July issue of GSA Today, they blamed the tremor, which left 88,000 people dead or missing, on faults -- splits in the rock in the Earth's crust -- with very little seismic activity.

As part of its long-term research, the team had operated 25 broadband seismograph stations in western Sichuan...