“The biggest risk is aftershocks for the 8.2 in the same area where the 8.2 occurred. They’ll become less frequent with time, but the risk still exists for days and weeks,” Hutton said. Scientists still don’t have a way to predict when and where earthquakes will hit, so it is impossible to say whether other quakes will strike along rim areas, she said.
The most susceptible areas on the Ring of Fire include such populated cities as Santiago, Chile; Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Tokyo, Japan; and Lima, Peru.
