The causes of major earthquakes like the magnitude 7.8 quake that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday (6/2) are well understood. But that doesn't make a massive quake any easier to predict.
Despite advances in science and technology, it is almost impossible to know exactly when and where an earthquake will occur.
"Earthquake prediction has always been the holy grail," said Wendy Bohon, an earthquake geologist who works as a communications strategist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
"If we can tell people exactly when an earthquake will occur, we can take steps to mitigate it. But the Earth is a very complicated system," he said.
He said part of the challenge was that the nature of earthquakes makes them unpredictable events. When one earthquake occurs, it will happen quickly.
"Earthquakes are not like a slow-moving train that eventually picks up speed. It is a sudden, accelerated event," said Ben van der Pluijm, a professor of geology at the University of Michigan.
Earthquakes also tend to strike with little to no warning. Although scientists have investigated potential precursor events, ranging from shifts in subsurface sound to potential increases in a region's seismic activity to changes in animal behavior, so far they have been unable to pinpoint a consistent signal that a shake is imminent.
The lack of clear patterns makes it difficult to make reliable earthquake forecasts such as weather reports.
In addition, the processes that underlie earthquakes, the collision of tectonic plates and the energy that is formed as a result, tend to take place over a long period of time. For example, scientists can measure that an m earthquake is likely to hit a region in the next 200 years, which may be specific on a geological time scale. Meanwhile, on the human time scale, there are still not too many specific predictions.
"We have a very good idea of where we expect earthquakes, and even the size of the larger earthquakes we can estimate in this area, but that doesn't help us narrow it down to the human time scale," van der Pluijm said.
The US Geology Survey (USGS) is even more outspoken on this topic. "Neither the USGS nor any other scientist has predicted a major earthquake. We don't know how, and we can't predict to find out sometime in the future," the USGS wrote on its website.
However, there are ways to prepare for disaster mitigation. The USGS for example, developed an early warning system called ShakeAlert that detects when significant earthquakes have occurred in California, Oregon and Washington and then issues radio, television and mobile alerts saying that a strong shake is imminent.
"In most cases, an alert only gives a few seconds of warning, but that time can be invaluable," says van der Pluijm.
"Twenty seconds sounds like a very short time, but it's enough time for you to seek shelter under a table. This isn't a prediction, but a tool like ShakeAlert is a huge step forward because it minimizes the impact that is unavoidable," he continues.
One of the most important ways to prepare for an earthquake is to be aware of the risks, says Bohon. For policymakers, this means ensuring that critical infrastructure is protected in earthquake-prone areas.
"What we need to do is make sure we understand what can happen and build something to withstand it. We have to make sure people know what to do. We have to make sure that our city is able to withstand the hazard so that we not only survive the earthquake, but can also last as long as possible afterwards," he concluded.