Dutch seismologist Frank Hoogerbeets, who rose to international prominence after predicting the devastating earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria last month, has said that the world could be hit with another major quake in the coming days.

Hoogerbeets, who makes his forecasts based on the motions of celestial bodies, published a video on YouTube on Monday in which he warned that “the first week of March is going to be extremely critical.”

“A convergence of critical planetary geometry around March 2 and 5 may result in large to very large seismic activity, possibly even a mega-thrust earthquake around March 3 and 4 and/or March 6 and 7,” the description to the clip read.

In the video itself, the seismologist claimed that the power of the supposed impending quake “may be well over 8 magnitude.”

The affected area could stretch thousands of kilometers, from the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands in Russia’s Far East, all the way down to the Philippines and Indonesia, Hoogerbeets said.

Costs from Türkiye’s massive quake rising

“I’m not exaggerating. I’m not trying to create fear. This is a warning,” insisted the scientist, who works at the Solar System Geometry Survey (SSGEOS).

The head of the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Survey of Russia’s Academy of Sciences, Danila Chebrov, has questioned Hoogerbeets’ predictions and described him as an “amateur.” The connection between the movements of the planets in the solar system and seismic activity on Earth “is rather weak, and it’s problematic to use it as the main prognostic tool,” Chebrov explained.

On February 3, Hoogerbeets issued a tweet that read: “Sooner or later there will be a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in this region (South-Central Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon).”

Three days later, a 7.8 magnitude quake struck Türkiye and Syria. The disaster has caused the deaths of more than 50,000 people, with powerful aftershocks continuing in the region to this day.

Dutch seismologist Hoogerbeets has made predictions down the years which didn’t come true. Commenting on his work earlier this month, Susan Hough of the US Geological Survey insisted that no scientist has “ever predicted a major earthquake.” Hough told NPR that the spot-on forecast for the quakes in Türkiye and Syria was just a coincidence. “It’s the stopped clock that’s right twice a day, basically,” she said.

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A local newspaper cites experts warning of a potential catastrophe if an earthquake hits the country’s biggest city

Istanbul should prepare itself for a powerful quake, scientists and public figures have warned. This month’s disaster in southern Turkey, which claimed tens of thousands of lives, is a “rehearsal” for what could come next, they argued in the newspaper Hurriyet on Friday.

When the next Istanbul earthquake happens, the damage “will swallow everyone,” unless people drop their differences and work on improving the seismic resilience of the city, Turkish author Nedim Sener wrote.

He cited a risk assessment by Bogazici University’s quake research lab, which counted how many buildings would be impacted by an earthquake of 7.5+ magnitude in Türkiye’s most populous and economically vital hub. With almost 13,500 structures expected to be heavily damaged, and hundreds of thousands of others affected to a smaller degree, the loss of life would be greater than what the country has just experienced, Sener predicted.

Some Turkish officials, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, have voiced similar concerns. The head of the city administration said 90,000 structures were at risk of total collapse in case of a major earthquake, citing a fresh survey by his municipality.

Cost of Türkiye quake damage estimated

Speaking in a TV interview this week, Imamoglu criticized the central government for issuing an amnesty to some 317,000 buildings which failed to meet earthquake resilience codes. It meant that the owners were allowed to pay a fine rather than demolish their properties.

Istanbul is located near a tectonic fault line that passes under the Marmara Sea. The 1999 quake in Izmit, which killed over 17,000 people, struck some 80 kilometers east of the city center, and half that distance from its easternmost suburbs.

Turkish Seismologist Naci Gorur, from Istanbul Technical University, warned that the risk of a major quake hitting Istanbul in the near future was growing. The probability of a tremor measuring over 7 magnitude occurring near the city within 30 years has increased from 62% in the aftermath of the 1999 disaster to 80% now, he said during a TV appearance. The scientists cited calculations by Tom Parsons, a fellow researcher at the US Geological Survey.

The twin quakes on February 6 caused massive devastation in Türkiye and northern Syria. Their combined death toll is estimated at around 44,000, including over 38,000 on the Turkish side.

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The location of an ancient lake could further understanding as to whether the Red Planet ever hosted life

A snapshot from NASA’s Curiosity rover has revealed compelling evidence that a large body of water once existed in an area of the planet previously thought to have been a barren wasteland, the American space agency announced this week.

The rover, which has been exploring the planet for more than a decade, has vastly increased our understanding of the Martian landscape since it landed on the planet’s surface in 2012.

But a recent discovery at an area of the planet known as the ‘sulfate-bearing unit’ has NASA particularly excited, after they found the “clearest evidence yet” of signs that a significant lake likely existed in an area previously thought to have contained only small trickles of water.

“This is the best evidence of water and waves that we’ve seen in the entire mission,” said NASA’s Aswin Vasavada in a statement this week. “We climbed through thousands of feet of lake deposits and never saw evidence like this – and now we found it in a place we expected to be dry.”

A new panorama from @MarsCuriosity provides some of the clearest evidence yet that ancient waves once lapped Martian lakeshores—in a region that scientists didn't expect: https://t.co/kS4i8PWBgt pic.twitter.com/kzXtJRqLy6

— NASA (@NASA) February 9, 2023

It is hypothesized that if life – microbial or otherwise – ever existed on Mars, evidence of this could potentially be discovered near where water was once concentrated. Scientists also expect to find clues as to how the once watery planet transformed into the freezing wasteland it is today.

“Billions of years ago, waves on the surface of a shallow lake stirred up sediment at the lake bottom, over time creating rippled textures left in rock,” NASA added in its statement on Wednesday.

However, efforts to drill for samples at the foothills of Mount Sharp – a three-mile-high mountain which once contained streams and lakes – have been complicated by the rover encountering rocks too hard for its drill.

“Mars’ ancient climate had a wonderful complexity to it, much like Earth’s,” Vasavada added.

The discovery of water on Mars was first confirmed by NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander in 2008, with subsequent missions locating a large subglacial lake one mile below the southern polar ice cap in 2018.

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