Boobquake 2010: Modestly dressed women seldom make earthquakes

modestshirt, originally uploaded by john@comicslifestyle.

This modestshirt available at Blag Hag Blog is printed with the message 'Modestly dressed women seldom make earthquakes, Boobquake 2010'. The movement ‘Boobquake’ was kick-started by Jen McCreight, an American student from Indiana, in protest against the comment of the Iranian cleric Kazem Sedighi, 'Many women who do not dress modestly... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.'

Iran is a country that is constantly rocked by earthquakes. A major earthquake of a moment magnitude (Mw) of 6.6 on the Richter scale struck the Iranian city of Bam, surrounding Kerman province, on December 26, 2003. It occurred as a result of stresses generated by the motion of the Arabian plate northward against the Eurasian plate at the rate of approximately 3 centimeters (1 inch) per year. Deformation of the Earth's crust in response to the plate motion takes place in a broad zone that spans the entire width of Iran and extends into Turkmenistan.

There is little earthquake education in Iran, and the cleric also seems to be a product of it, though The International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology was established as a Public Education Department in 1990 to improve "the safety, preventing, and preparedness culture against earthquakes among all groups of the society." It may be noted, in October 2003, Bahram Akasheh, professor of geophysics at Tehran University, called the effects of public ignorance about earthquakes ‘poisonous’.

Following the Bam earthquake, Iran seriously considered moving the capital of Tehran, which lies on a major fault, on which scientists predicted a devastating earthquake similar to that of Bam. The most cited example was Isfahan, a city in central Iran that had previously served as capital until it was moved to Tehran in 1788. A similar movement to move the capital was proposed in 1991, but it is not implemented by the Iranian government.

What the clerics and the government of Iran need to do on an emergency basis is to educate people on earthquake preparedness, retrofit the poorly built buildings, and to build earthquake resistant buildings for the future, if they are genuinely concerned about the safety of the people, instead of telling people that immodest dress of women causes earthquakes.