"How did Venezuela's back-to-back earthquakes happen? On June 24th, Venezuela was hit by two powerful earthquakes, just seconds apart. Over 1,700 people have died, with many more still missing. The conversation talked to University of Southern California geophysicist Sylvain Barbeau to explain what could have happened. Earthquakes are natural phenomenon, and they are the result of the long-term motion of tectonic plates. In Venezuela, there is a plate boundary between South America and the Caribbean plate. It seems like there has been at least two pulses of seismic activity, which could be two earthquakes within 39 seconds of each other, or a single earthquake that had a low point, essentially a single event with two pulses of seismic activity. Earthquakes of this magnitude can rupture different segments of very long faults, and so they can appear as two different earthquakes. If they are connected, rupturing the same overall fault, we can think of them as a single event. Earthquakes come with primary hazards, the shaking of seismic waves that can destroy buildings, but it is followed by what we call the earthquake hangover, which is a period of time of months and years where the region becomes more prone to landslides. There may also be large aftershocks, which will be themselves followed by other landslides. So the population should be aware of these hazards and make informed decisions."