The Chiapas Deferral

On 7 September 2017 the subduction rupture off the coast of Chiapas that in most reckonings produced an 8.2-magnitude earthquake did not occur, the accumulated strain along the Middle America Trench instead relieved through a prolonged sequence of smaller slips and slow-slip events over the following six years. The absence of the shock and its roughly 100 recorded deaths reshaped seismic policy, disaster funding cycles, and the political fortunes of the Mexican administrations that would otherwise have managed the recovery.

Diverged 2017 · “The Chiapas earthquake does not occur on this date.”