A geophysicist who says he anticipated Monday’s deadly earthquake in Colombia is now warning that the powerful tremor may heighten the risk of a significant seismic disaster in the United States.
Stefan Burns, a geophysicist who has been tracking global earthquake activity, said California is now squarely “in the crosshairs” for a potentially severe quake along some of its most dangerous fault systems, including the San Andreas Fault.
“California is super overdue,” Burns said during a YouTube livestream. “What areas in California are now at greater risk? In general, just all of California but really more Southern California would be at greater risk because of this.”
Burns argued that the energy unleashed by the magnitude 7.4 earthquake near San Jose Del Palmar does not simply dissipate at the epicenter.
Instead, he said, seismic waves and shifts in underground stress can move through the planet, potentially adding pressure to fault lines thousands of miles away and raising the likelihood of future earthquakes.
He pointed in particular to the United States, warning that well-known earthquake zones including the West Coast and the New Madrid Seismic Zone in the Midwest could be “activated” following the Colombia quake, which has killed at least 132 people.
He warned that the next six to 12 months could prove especially important for California, noting that a number of major earthquakes in modern history have struck within months of one another.
“It’s that six [month] to one year time frame that we’re worried about and if we get kind of past that then maybe we can start to breathe a bit of a sigh of relief,” Burns said. “But because we’ve been seeing so much activity in Northern California, it’s hard to rule out Northern California. So really all of California is problematic right now.”
Over 130 people have been killed by a major 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Colombia on August 10
Researchers found that 159.2 million people live in areas exposed to ‘very strong’ shaking under the latest US Geological Survey (USGS) hazard model. Above is an AI-generated stock image
Burns, a popular commentator who focuses on earthquake science online, first predicted that a major earthquake could strike Colombia on June 24, nearly two months before Monday’s disaster.
He said during a YouTube livestream that the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes in Venezuela that same day would be sending out waves of seismic energy that could cause another fault to rupture several weeks or months later.
‘Anytime I see two earthquakes pop off close together within the same year. They’re linked together,’ Burns said right after the quakes in Venezuela.
This potential chain reaction traveling between South America and North America has been seen before, according to Burns.
Between December 1811 and February 1812, a group of three powerful quakes over magnitude 7.0 caused damage throughout the Midwest, from Cincinnati to St Louis, and was felt in states as far away as Connecticut and Louisiana.
These were followed weeks later by a major disaster in Caracas, Venezuela on March 26, 1812, which is believed to have been a magnitude 7.7 quake.
Nine months later, two more major earthquakes, believed to be stronger than magnitude 7.0, struck California – the first erupting near the San Andreas Fault on December 8, 1812 and the second taking place on December 21 in Santa Barbara.
‘When you see these sort of trends you have to pay attention and it adds for example forecasting like a “plus one modifier” of probability I would say you know this is not an exact science there’s an art and a science to this,’ Burns said.
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Scientist Stefan Burns (Pictured) predicted Colombia would be struck by Monday’s earthquake in late June
Applying that same historical pattern to the recent quakes in South America, Burns believed the US would be in the greatest danger for a magnitude 7.0 or stronger earthquake throughout the rest of 2026 and early 2027.
The US Geological Survey has already warned that 159.2 million people live in areas exposed to ‘very strong’ shaking under their latest hazard model, up from 111.8 million in its previous version.
California remained one of the country’s most notorious earthquake hotspots, but the threat also spread to New Madrid and far beyond.
The danger increased around the New Madrid Seismic Zone, which stretches about 150 miles along the Mississippi River Valley, covering parts of northeastern Arkansas, southeastern Missouri, western Tennessee, western Kentucky and southern Illinois.
Heavily traveled bridges also make New York, Atlanta and St Louis unexpectedly vulnerable to severe seismic activity, according to the USGS model.
Researchers warned that a damaged crossing could cut neighborhoods off from hospitals, delay emergency crews and paralyze traffic long after the shaking stops.
The new figures do not mean earthquakes have suddenly become more frequent, but show that improved scientific models have revealed far more people, homes and vital infrastructure may be exposed than previously understood.
A church tower collapsed during the August 10 earthquake in Colombia
Burns previously told Our News Outlet the Ring of Fire, a 25,000-mile arc encircling the Pacific Ocean which includes the US West Coast and South America, would soon need to balance itself by having more earthquakes on the US side of the ring.
In recent years, multiple megaquakes have been seen on the Asia side of the Pacific Plate, including a magnitude 8.8 disaster in Kamchatka, Russia on July 29, 2025.
‘We’ve had tons of activity in the Western Pacific, and I do see it moving more towards the East, and I see that really hitting South America and also North America pretty strongly,’ the scientist predicted in July.
Harrowing footage taken from across Colombia on Monday showed the facades of buildings crumbling and people huddling in the streets, unable to stand up straight as the ground beneath them rocked violently.
In one shocking video, a church’s spire was seen falling off and crumbling into rubble in front of a terrified crowd of onlookers.
A 2025 blog post on the Geological Society of America’s official site warned that a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone could cause more than $43 billion in damage, while previous studies have estimated the potential death toll at more than 80,000.
The most recent predictions in California from USGS have looked at a magnitude 7.8 earthquake along the San Andreas Fault originating right in Los Angeles, a city of 3.8 million people.
This hypothetical ‘Big One’ would cause roughly 1,800 deaths, 50,000 injuries, and $200 billion in damages, according to the Great California ShakeOut .
