Talk about interesting (and spooky) timing. In a matter of a few days, a series of deadly earthquakes hit Japan and Ecuador, and New Yorker writer Kathryn Schulz won a Pulitzer for “The Really Big One,” her brilliant disaster-movie-like narrative of what awaits those of us living along the Cascadia subduction zone.

Which begs the question: Should people living in the Northwest be worried that the weekend’s catastrophic Ecuador and Japan quakes – hitting magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.3, respectively – are a harbinger for the inevitable death, destruction and tsunamis that awaits us someday? The countries are, after all, located on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Are the ocean’s tectonic plates shifting? Are the recent earthquakes connected? Good lord! Could we be next? FULL REPORT


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