Did "Boobquake" cause an Earthquake?

Did 'Boobquake' Facebook group spark Taiwan tremor? New 'evidence' for cleric who claimed baring of cleavage causes earthquakes

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 7:50 PM on 26th April 2010

Can it really be true that a crazed Iranian cleric is right?

As woman across the globe today bared their breasts in defiance of Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi’s claim that cleavage caused earthquakes, the earth shook in Taiwan.

A tremor, measuring 6.5 on the richter scale, came as a Facebook event called ‘Boobquake’ received support from 200,000 women vowing to bare their chests.

But the organiser, Jennifer McCreight, a student at Purdue University, Indiana, today insisted the Taiwan quake does not count because it happened outside her time zone.

She admitted on her blog that the wobble was significant, but not unusual.

‘On avg, 134 magnitude 6-6.9 earthquakes occur annually,’ she wrote on her Twitter feed, before following it up on her blog with: ‘If we get many of a similar magnitude in the next 24 hours, we might start worshipping the power of immodesty.’

Luckily, although the earthquake, which hit the southeast coast of Taiwan today, was powerful, it caused relatively little damage.

Buildings, which are designed to withstand regular quakes, swayed briefly but none fell and there were no casualties.

The tremblor was felt at the site of an earlier landslide in northern Taiwan, which led to a motorway bridge to collapse, but did not hamper rescue efforts.

The 6.5-magnitude quake hit at 10:59 a.m. (0259 GMT), 195 miles off the southern Taiwan city of Taitung at a depth of 6.2 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The agency's initial report had put the quake's magnitude at 6.9.

In Taipei, buildings swayed for up to 20 seconds when the quake hit, but police said there were no reports of casualties or damage anywhere on the island.

No tsunami alert was issued.

In northern Keelung county, 18 miles northeast of Taipei, the tremor caused little new damage at the site of a massive landslide, police said.

Yestersay, a hillside collapsed onto a three-lane highway following several days of rain, burying three cars.

Many of the hundreds of workers digging through the rubble felt the temblor but went on searching for the four passengers believed to have been buried in the cars, police said.

Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan but most are minor and cause little or no damage.

However, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than 2,300 people.

The comments that incensed McCreight came from a prominent Iranian cleric.

‘Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,’ said Mullah Sedighi, Tehran's acting Friday prayer leader.

That prompted McCreight to post on her blog a week ago that she wanted to test that theory to see if cleavage really does possess seismic powers. She made a ‘modest proposal,’ asking other ‘female skeptics’ to join her in showing a little cleavage today.

‘With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake.

‘If not, I'm sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn't rumble,’ she wrote on BlagHag.com.

Since posting the plea on Facebook, close to 200,000 people have confirmed they will participate in Boobquake.

She said she's even received emails of support from Iran, where women are required by law to cover from head to toe.

Miss McCreight also noted that she has received some negative response and heard from some who say she is objectifying women.

‘What I say in response to that is people are doing this voluntarily,’ she said.

‘I'm not forcing people to do it. If women want to dress that way, we have the right to do that. To say that some men might behave inappropriately, that we should be the ones to cover up, that just doesn't make sense to me.’

McCreight says it's up to women how they want to take part in the event.

‘I don't want people to force themselves to dress more immodestly than they feel comfortable,’ she said.

‘But if you want to wear a low-cut shirt or some shorts, whatever you like. And we're going to see if we actually cause more or more severe earthquakes today.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1268991/Did-Boobquake-...