LAHORE: According to scientists, there would be an increase in deadly earthquakes in 2018. According to scientists, the slowdown of Earth’s rotation leads to high seismic activity thus causing deadly earthquakes. In a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America by Roger Bilham and Rebecca Bendick of the University of Colorado, Boulder and University of Montana, Missoula, they highlighted the link between Earth’s rotation and earthquakes. For their research, they looked at the data of earthquake of magnitude equivalent or greater than 7 that have occurred since the 20th century. They found that whenever the Earth’s rotation became slow, deadly and intense earthquakes occurred. They also found that there were periods of around 5 years when the Earth’s rotation slowed and in that period, high seismic activity was seen. They highlighted that the periodic slowdown of Earth’s rotation began four years ago and warned that there would be severe earthquakes in 2018. They said that it is impossible to determine where the earthquakes would occur but they are likely to occur in the most populated tropical areas of Earth.