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地震科学在从束手无策通向可靠预报的道路上已走到了中途,然而这样中途徘徊不定的状况,有时比一点预报也没有,还糟糕。近20年来,出现了一些拯救人类生命的有效的地震预报先例。最值得注意的是1975年发生在中国海城的一次大震,在这次几乎要把该城夷为平地的大震前,成千人撤离了房屋,避免了死亡。然而,就在第二年,在距北京100英里的唐山发生了一次强震,这次震前没做预报,几乎有600,000人丧生(译注:原文如此)。问题是地震预报和其它科学一样仍有许多
Earthquake science has come halfway on the road to precarious forecasting, yet this staggering midway, sometimes worse than a little forecast, is not. In the recent 20 years, there have been some precedents of effective earthquake prediction to save human life. Most notably, was a massive earthquake that hit China’s Haicheng in 1975, before the earthquake that nearly delineated the city had left thousands of houses and avoided deaths. In the following year, however, a strong earthquake occurred in Tangshan, 100 miles from Beijing, without forecast, leaving almost 600,000 dead. The problem is that earthquake prediction is just as much as any other science