Is Mother Nature alone to blame?

IN the wake of the recent spate of earthquakes hitting the hinterlands of our country causing unprecedented death and destruction, the media likes to easily blame Mother Nature not being so kind.
Well, arguably, researches have shown that we are right on the Pacific Ring of Fire or circum-Pacific belt, a region associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and plate movements.
Hence earthquakes and volcanoes are expected in this part of the world and the story as usual is any natural phenomena.
But what piques my curiosity is the pattern or series of earthquakes happening one after the another, especially around the oil and gas extraction areas in an orchestrated kind of way.
And this actually prompted me to do a little desktop research to know what happens to the void that is left after oil and gas is extracted.
A growing body of scientific research from government and academic researchers suggests that disposal wells, which inject the dirty water left over from fracking and brine from oil and gas production deep below ground, are causing an increase in seismic activity.
Something to think about, maybe for the future.

David Lepi
Port Moresby