Seismologists around the world are seeing less seismic noise in their measurements since humans have reduced their travel because of COVID-19. No cars, no trains, no buses, no planes… without these things, it’s now possible to detect smaller seismic events.
Let’s turn this into the beginning of a story. What if the early warnings of a massive earthquake were now able to be detected beneath a large city? Normally, the minuscule readings would be lost amid the chaos generated by humans.
The story could chronicle the efforts of a lone scientist to convince the authorities to evacuate the city. He could show them the canary in the coal mine and the authorities ignore him. The middle of the story could be about his demise in society and have him end up homeless, everyone thinking him crazy. The false ending could be that the date that he predicted the earthquake comes to pass without any event, shaking his confidence. The end of the first book could be the earthquake, the second book could be about leaving the old city behind, and the third could be about setting up a new city where scientists are given the authority in society.
Alternatively, what if the authorities believing the scientist, were able to gather further proof of the impending disaster and chose to evacuate the city? It could alternate between the scientist’s viewpoint and the point of view of a small child who is forced to leave their home. It would turn into an immigration tale and bring into it a lot of what modern-day immigrants deal with when trying to enter the United States. The second book could be about them scraping together a life and family as a young adult, and the third could be about them leaving the comforts of their new life and going back to help immigrants who are escaping from another disaster/government. Going back to the news article, it seems that seismic monitoring stations beneath cities, useless most of the time, are now finding relevant data. The article also claims the Earth’s crust is moving a little less because of the reduction in human activity. If this is indeed the case, there would be less chance of an earthquake in general which bodes well for a world already on lockdown because of the Coronavirus.
