M7.0 Philippine Islands Region

Forecasted: 2020-12-15

Earthquake occurrence date: 2021-01-21

Depth of earthquake: 92.00 km

*Model was calculated at the date of forecasting

Figure 1: M7.0 Philippine Islands region; Regional shear-traction field at the time of the earthquake.

Figure 2: M7.0 Philippine Islands Region earthquake – shear-traction field at the near-, intermediate- and far- field distances from the earthquake.

The presence of tectonic waves in the region increased the shear-traction field in the region of Philippines, triggering multiple small to moderate and strong earthquakes, as shown in Figure 1. On 15th December 2020, we forecasted the elevated percentage for earthquakes in the region of South Alaska for the time period from 19th January 2021 to 25th January 2020. The strongest one happened on 21st January and was followed by weaker ones in the following days.

Time-dependent evolution of the intermediate- and far-field shear-traction in the region shows that the M7.0 earthquake happened during the increase at both, intermediate- and far- shear-traction fields. During the later increase of far- shear-traction field, another M6.1 earthquake was triggered in the region.