LONDON - Experts say there is nothing unusual about the spate of earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and now Turkey, but their devastation illustrates how growing construction along fault lines can lead to massive casualties.
Seismologists say that although one powerful quake can conceivably raise the risk for others elsewhere, the recent string of quakes is probably just coincidence.
Bob Holdsworth, an expert in tectonics at Durham University, said Monday that, "I can definitely tell you that the world is not coming to an end."
Bernard Doft, seismolo-gist for the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, said there is no direct connection between the recent major quakes.
"These events are too far apart to be of direct influence to each other," he said.
Although the Haitian quake occurred along a fault that had seen no major event for 250 years, both Chile and Turkey are prone to devastating quakes.
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More than half the cities with at least 1 million people are on active plate boundaries, which are where quakes tend to happen, said University of Colorado geologist Roger Bilham. Despite past quakes, shoddy new buildings still go up, he said.
