Earthquake Conspiracy Theories: Why Rumours Spread Faster

On the morning of November 21, 2025, a 5.7-magnitude earthquake shook Dhaka. The tremor lasted seconds, but its aftershocks settled inside people’s minds. In the days that followed, rumours multiplied faster than facts: dates for the “next earthquake” circulated on social media, fear gained a calendar, and everyday conversations turned into small theatres of speculation. This article explores why a single geological event can fracture into a forest of conspiracy theories, emotional narratives, and imagined warnings. Drawing from Mark Twain, E. B. White, Voltaire, and Émilie du Châtelet, the piece argues that earthquake rumours reveal more about human psychology than about tectonic plates. Twain exposes our contradictions; White warns of our arrogance toward nature; Voltaire interrogates the beneficiaries of fear; and du Châtelet reminds us that understanding begins with forces, not noise. Together, these voices form a lens through which the social life of a tremor becomes clearer: a scientific event wrapped in human stories, shaped by memory, uncertainty, and the deep-rooted need to explain what frightens us. Rather than despair, the article invites awareness — a quiet humility before the earth and before our own minds. It suggests that safeguarding truth in moments of collective anxiety is not merely scientific work but moral work.I was not alone when I wrote this. Others spoke, and I listened. —Jamee