With three significant earthquakes in the past week-7.0 magnitude quake near Japan last Friday, the huge 8.8 quake near Chile on Saturday, and a 6.4 near Taiwan yesterday-and the devastating 7.0 quake in Haiti last January that killed more than 200,000, people are asking if all these quakes are related.

The answer is “no.”

This is the opinion of Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. He said, “We’ve had quite a few quakes in the past two months, but not more than average.”

The scientist added that what has made the recent earthquakes newsworthy is that the earthquakes have hit near populated areas. Another 6.4 quake yesterday morning rattled the tiny Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, but no injuries have been reported.

The geological survey estimates that several million earthquakes occur around the world in an average year. Many, however, go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small magnitudes.

(article and photo source: USA Today)