Mw 7.4 Komandorskiye Ostrova Region

On 20 December 2018 a major earthquake occurred in the Komandorskiye Ostrova Region at a depth of 10 km. The seismic event occurred at 17:01:54 UTC and had an estimated moment magnitude (Mw) 7.4. A major earthquake in the region also occurred on 17 July 2017.

At the time of the earthquake Earth had been closely aligned with Mercury and Jupiter, which alignment was exact about 24 hours later. In addition, the Moon aligned with Uranus and Venus on 18-19 December. This would normally not be so critical if it weren't for the critical planetary geometry throughout the month that already triggered three major earthquakes. Apparently, the planetary and lunar geometry combined with stress in Earth's crust was critical enough to trigger five major (M7+) earthquakes within four weeks (30 November - 29 December).

Sun-Mars-Uranus           2018-12-13, 20:16:27   30°50'53"
Mercury-Sun-Neptune       2018-12-15,  3:05:54  345°24'40"
Earth-Mercury-Jupiter     2018-12-21, 17:36:10  249°19'22"
Mercury-Mars-Uranus       2018-12-21, 21:09:19   30°34'28"

Earth-Moon-Neptune        2018-12-14, 15:59:37  343°32'46"
Earth-Moon-Mars           2018-12-15,  1:41:44  348°23'30"
Earth-Moon-Uranus         2018-12-18,  6:48:26   28°30'05"
Moon-Earth-Venus          2018-12-19,  6:21:53  221°31'24"
          

SSGI depiction of planetary (PG) and lunar (LG) geometry