What made the deadly Venezuelan earthquakes different

[I]t appears these two quakes may have occurred on two separate faults. Several faults intersect in this tectonically complex region. Historically, when experts evaluate earthquake risk, they haven't necessarily accounted for this multifault scenario, says Chris Goldfinger, a paleoseismologist at Oregon State University. "We always tend to kind of assume that earthquakes will just be on one fault and only on one fault," he says. In 2016, a multifault event — the Kaikōura earthquake in New Zealand — took people by surprise, says Goldfinger, and changed scientists' understanding of how interconnected faults can trigger multiple ruptures. Assuming the Venezuelan quakes...