Expert rejects major quake speculation as fake news
Experts are dismissing the recent onslaught of speculation of an imminent major earthquake in Greece in the media and elsewhere as nothing but scaremongering.
“Public terrorism is a permanent problem we face,” says Professor Costas Papazachos, professor of lithosphere physics, seismology and applied geophysics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, speaking to Kathimerini.
“Unfortunately, [the speculation] is uncritically reproduced by the media. You will see a completely undocumented news item on one website reproduced unchanged by dozens of others. It’s a modern phenomenon that is actually getting worse as more and more sites are forced into rapid republication, something to which no answer has been found,” he noted, adding that in most cases, the title is enough to cause a stir.
“Most publications talk about increased seismic concern in Greece and underneath they write absolutely nothing. It is completely false news, without any weight,” he notes.
