Do you think that someday we will be able to predict natural disasters like earthquakes days or even hours before they

Question: Do you think that someday we will be able to predict natural disasters like earthquakes days or even hours before they happen?
- Keywords:
  earthquake,
  natural disaster,
  prediction
Asked by Luna-chan to Marta on 10 Mar 2017.
- Marta Varela answered on 10 Mar 2017:
  
  Hi Luna-Chan.
  
  Great question. Yes, I do. There is a big problem though, which nobody knows how to solve at the moment. Most of the processes behind natural disasters (for example, the weather) are what we call “chaotic”, meaning that really, really tiny changes (of the kinds that are really hard to measure) can make a big difference. This is usually called the “butterfly effect”. Have you heard of this?
  
  With earthquakes, it is hard to get the information about the properties of the materials within the Earth that would allow us to predict them really well, but I am confident we will crack this puzzle one day too.

Question: Do you think that someday we will be able to predict natural disasters like earthquakes days or even hours before they happen?