Endless Thread - Aftershocks Online

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

The people of Turkey, Syria and Lebanon are still recovering from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people and injured thousands more. Two weeks later, another earthquake shook the region. Ben and producer Quincy Walters talk about ways the disaster is being chronicled on social media — from a Twitter user predicting a catastrophic earthquake just days before the actual earthquake happened, to mysterious lights in the sky that can help geologists better forecast earthquakes.

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WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Hey, listeners, this is producer Quincy Walters. Last week, our host Ben Brock Johnson and I recorded a conversation we had about the devastation of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that killed nearly 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria earlier this. month. And in the time since we've recorded that, while people, you know, try to recover and bury their loved ones, yet another earthquake has hit the region, a 6.3 on the Richter scale this time. And eight people have died, and nearly 300 people have been injured as a result.

Hello, Quincy. Hey, Ben. I hope you're doing okay. I think it's been a weird, the world seems to be in a lot of trouble. Yeah, every day I can't even keep up with it. Yeah. How are you doing with all that? I'm doing okay. I guess I'm just slightly processing things slower than the news cycle is. How about you? Kind of the same. It's a tough moment. I hope people are doing okay. I think you and I kind of want

to talk a little bit about what's happening in Turkey and Syria, right? Right. Yeah. It was it was kind of earlier, you know, this week kind of just hit me that, you know, at that point the death toll was, you know, 33,000. And now today it's over 40,000. So, around 40,000. It just seems like, you know, just kind of a, I don't want to say immeasurable loss of life, but that kind of feels like the right phrase for it, even though there's a number on it. There's just, you know, an kind of unfathomable amount of people who are dead. Yeah. Yeah, it's really sad. I think it's hard to know what to do in this moment. And if it's okay, I want to talk to you about kind of the way that I experienced this news happening. And also some, you know,

interesting ways in which I think Reddit is reacting. So I basically found out about this news on Reddit because people had started posting about it within an hour of the earthquake happening. News outlets were reporting on this very quickly too. And obviously that reporting was getting posted on Reddit, but also, you know, within an hour people were posting it just from seeing it out in the world on Twitter. You know, it was sort of like it wasn't necessarily people posting news articles, but, people posting other people talking about it who were closer to it happening, right? Right. And I think very quickly, you know, people started, you know, trying to find out information, but also like looking to see how to help.

One of the things that jumped out to me early on was just how many different versions of this there were. What do you mean? Well, you know, on Reddit, there's all these different communities. And so within all of these communities, people started this conversation of like, how do we help? Like, what should we be doing? Like, how should we be supporting people in Turkey? And, you know, with this kind of thing, there's, you know, it's always complicated.

There's, I don't know, some of that effort can feel sort of, I don't know if tokens the right word. But, you know, there's also a lot of fraud that happens around this kind of thing, right? So it's tricky when you're talking about finding ways to support and you're just a just doing cyber from your basement, as Donald Trump would describe us. Right. You know, one of the things that jumped out to me, one of the, you know, posts on Reddit that jumped out to me early on was that the Arsenal subreddit, a football club in the UK, started to talk about how to raise money and post about how to raise money. and that got a ton of comments on it and, you know, a lot of people reacting to it in the post stayed up even though it wasn't directly Arsenal football related.

Another thing that jumped out to me was a K-pop group. Interesting. So there's a K-pop subreddit and I'm going to tell you right now, Quincy, I am not a K-pop fan, although I, you know. Hey man, no judgment if you are, Ben. No, I mean, I would love to be.

I just don't know anything about it. So I'm going to sound very dumb right now. It's not BTS, is it? It's Itsy? Oh, I've not heard of it. ITZY, R slash ITZY is the name of the subreddit. It says a community for fans of Itsy a K-pop group. One of the members of this group donated about $40,000.

Wow. And, you know, obviously the posts in this K-pop subreddit are talking. about this and sort of being inspired by this and discussing it. And so it's just interesting to me to see the number of different kinds of communities that we're talking about this, right? I think one of the other complexities is there's a lot of different ways that you can donate. It's a little bit dangerous, right? Like you can get taken in by fake charities that might, you know, take advantage of you when you're trying to give money. There was a really, a really, a really like well done posts that got cross posted to this turkey subreddit and to a number of

other subredits that was just like this huge list of different kinds of charities what they actually did like whether they were you know giving supplies or about actually supporting workers trying to pull people out of the rubble or a different kind you know a different kind of charity and so that was really interesting to just to see people put that together and see all of the, you know, supportive comments and people saying, yeah, I just donated and see the sort of kind of crowdsourced discussion and understanding of, you know, what might be a good charity to donate to and what might be tricky. That's good. I guess after, you know, so many sort of tragedies, it's kind of like there's enough data to know which charities and organizations are reputable. and good on their word and maybe which ones aren't.

Yeah, that's right. Another couple of posts just to tell you about one was, it was pretty interesting. This got sort of posted all over the place, but apparently three days before this earthquake happened, a Twitter user actually predicted, a researcher predicted that a 7.5 or higher earthquake would affect this region.

Which is pretty interesting. And the tweet says, sooner or later, this is three days before this happened. The tweet says, sooner or later, there will be a 7.5 or higher earthquake in this region,

South Central Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon. So, I don't know, that just sort of... Are they a geographer or something? It says they're a researcher, and I think they must be you know, a geography researcher or maybe an earthquake researcher. I haven't gone down the rabbit hole on this one yet. But I just think it's interesting how people process these kinds of things.

Because like, look, I think it's like good for us to point these things out. And I also think like there's a little bit of a not a conspiratorial mindset, but it's like, wow, this guy knew it was going to happen before it was going to happen. I think that speaks to like how far we've, come in terms of predicting seismic events, but also how far we have not come when it comes to how we deal with this stuff. So another one of the posts that was really popular was actually a post that linked to a story in the LA Times, interestingly, about this kind of deadly building flaw that is common

in California that is also sort of running. rampant in Turkey in Syria. And it's described as this non-ductile concrete construction. I think a lot of people in Turkey got arrested for that, like a lot of builders or something. That's right. A lot of developers, yeah. Over 100, I think, got taken in by authorities. So I just think it's interesting how far we've come and yet also how far we have yet to go when it comes to protecting ourselves and each other from this kind of disaster.

Okay, I'm going to show you one last thing, Quincy. Okay. So the title of this post, and this post has like tons and tons of awards. You know, it's got 101,000 upvotes and, you know, 1,300 comments on it. The title of this photo is Turkish baby saved after 130 hours under the rubble. And apparently this baby is two months old. how would you describe, you know, the photo is like, you know, a rescue worker's hand, and the baby is sort of like wrapped up in this kind of protective blanket.

And all you really see is the baby's face. And Quincy, I wonder if you could describe the look on this baby's face. Yeah, I mean, I guess the two words that come to mind are eyes and cheeks when I see it because the baby has these huge eyes, these huge cheeks, and they're looking off into the distance. I don't know how to describe the facial expression on their face, but it kind of looks like, you know, it conveys tremendous tragedy, but also kind of a bit of hope, too, you know?

I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's all in this, like, baby's face. That makes total sense to me. This is the exact way I would describe this, too. You see in this baby's face, like, I've been through some shit. And also, like, I am so glad to be here. We will post this picture and we'll post, you know, what we think is a pretty comprehensive list of charities that you can give to further give your support,

even if you're not in the region. Yes, please be sure to check that out. And coming up, I've got a story about earthquake lights right after the break. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you. the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radio Lab, Adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcast. There is something powerful about the sound of the human voice.

Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire. Tell your organization's story with a custom podcast from City Space Productions, the creative studio from WBUR's Business Partnerships team. Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. Before the break you had mentioned somebody sort of forecasting the earthquake three days before it happened via Twitter. So when I was on Twitter, you know, looking at the images and videos of the earthquake, a few videos can. kept popping up.

And they were these videos of these sort of blue lights in the sky. They were kind of, you know, amorphous blue lights. And some people in the comments were saying, you know, those are electrical transformers blowing. You know, and based on the color and sort of how random the lights kind of appear, it does seem like a plausible explobey. Except these lights would be where, you know, there were no electrical transformers.

And so, you know, as I usually do when I want to find out more information, I went to YouTube and I searched in earthquake lights. And there's a video that is called, if you see these lights, you only have a few seconds to hide. So what are those mysterious warnings? For centuries, people interpreted the lights as something otherworldly. The scientific community didn't take them seriously. Just put them down to a false recollection, a mind trick, or pure imagination. And so this video kind of debunks the electrical transformer theory because it says that it's kind of documented that in ancient Greece and ancient China,

these sorts of lights would appear in the sky before earthquakes. In fact, in China, there was like a lure of dragon clouds warning of an earthquake. And, you know, back then, when people said this, people would kind of chalk it up to the people kind of seeing things or being cursed or, you know, whatever. But as time went on, there were sort of like corroborated reports of these lights appearing before earthquakes. Like, for example, before, I guess the great San Francisco earthquake, I don't know if that's a technical name, there were accounts of sort of a rainbow light in the sky. Or, you know, there was a huge earthquake in Missouri in the 1800s, and they had, you know, lights in the sky. And, you know, with the advent of technology, we have pictures and moving images now of these

earthquake lights or EQLs, as the video calls them. And so there is no sort of concrete explanation for it. But scientists have, you know, a few theories, and it seems like a prevailing theory is, is that what we're seeing in the sky is the result of, you know, the friction of the earth rubbing against itself. Wow. So a lot like, you know, if you're into black powder weaponry, you might be familiar with a flint lock, or, you know, if you have ever seen two rocks being rubbed together, you know, that spark. And so the thought is that when the ground is shifting, there are now spaces where gases from the earth can rise. And, you know, one of the gases they say that could be being released is radon.

And to make a long story short, it might be the result of ionization happening in the air. like bringing me back to sort of like 10th grade chemistry or something. Wow. Okay. Or physics or anyway. Right. Which one of those scientific disciplines, but even, you know, geography or not geography, geology, my bad, geology even. But speaking of geography, a lot of these sightings have been geographically based. They're seen in like sort of specific places. And, but speaking of geography, like Europe and Asia. And so now... But not in the U.S. as much?

Not as much in the U.S. Earthquake lights have been observed in Italy, Greece, France, Germany, China, and parts of South America. Those areas have a lot of drops or ravines. That allows igneous rocks to gradually move up toward the surface. Those kinds of rocks generate an electrical charge

more easily than other times. But it goes back to, you know, that guy on Twitter you mentioned kind of forecasting the earthquake at the end of this video called, you know, if you see these lights, you only have, you know, a few moments to hide or whatever. It's said that geologists are trying to better forecast earthquakes. And recently, you know, in these discussions, earthquake lights have. been brought up as a way to forecast earthquakes happening. So, you know, we won't have this devastating amount of loss of life like, you know, we're seeing now. Quincey, do you, like, what do you think? You've watched some video of this now. Does it seem legit? I mean, I can see there's like a wiki article about it and, you know, certainly some chatter about it online. What's your impression now that you've looked at some video footage?

I really don't know what to think of it. It's a really interesting thing to see. Like, if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to look up earthquake lights. It's kind of just one of those things that scientifically it makes sense, but when you're seeing it, it just looks other words. It just looks other But I'm hoping that, you know, from this awareness now that, you know, maybe recognizing these lights will help people better forecast when these things are going to happen. Just like in the last day, Quincy, it looks like USA Today has done a piece about this. And people are putting it on Instagram and TikTok, of course. Right. But interestingly, some of the video that people have posted is actually video of a rocket in Kazakhstan.

Oh, dear. And it was filmed in 2022. Okay. So this is not, I'm not saying that what you're describing is not a thing, but I'm just saying what's interesting about this kind of thing, right, is because it's not sort of conclusive in terms of like where it comes from and what it is. Of course, it's being turned into misinformation and disinformation by the platforms. It's really interesting. And there are also, like, you know, videos saying that this is from the recent earthquake, when in fact, it could be, you know, from an earthquake that happened in Japan, you know, last year or in Mexico last year.

Right. So, you know, you kind of run into that problem of sort of, like, reuse. using images, but I think this is like one of those instances where it could be okay to be, to have like, you know, I don't want to advocate for misinformation, but it's kind of one of those things if, you know, the footage kind of looks the same. It kind of is this, you know, global corroboration of this thing that does happen. But if only, if only, there was sort of as much sort of fact-checking as there was reposting. We might be in a healthier state.

Heck yeah. Yeah, the original TikTok apparently that went viral got like a million views. Oh, wow. And it was showing a video that is definitely not from the earthquake. So, wild. Well, are you going to stay on the earthquake lightbeat, at least for now? I don't know what else. is to cover. I guess maybe

talking to some geologists on their thoughts or how they plan to use it in forecasting earthquakes, because it seems like, you know, it happens... You don't have a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Or during it, but you know, I guess, you know, sometimes seconds, moments matter. In the video, there was an instance where a guy did see the lights and he put his family in a car and they drove to safety. So, you know, who knows?

Well, keeping the year out for updates. And, yeah, thanks for introducing this to me, Quincy. I had no idea about it. No problem. Thanks for letting me talk about it. All right. Well, give, if you can, to help people in Turkey and Syria and Lebanon. And we'll talk to you all next week, hopefully about a happier topic.

Absolutely. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR station. This episode was produced by Nora Sacks and co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and myself, mix and sound design by Emily Cankowski. Thanks for listening.