With two large earthquakes happening only days apart, it might look like they’re connected. But how earthquakes influence each other is rather complex, particularly over long distances.

It took several trips before I began to understand the scale of the horror. It was 2009 and I was working in the Ainaro district in Timor Leste.

Questions as to why such a large earthquake, in this specific location at this time, and not elsewhere along the Himalaya, continue to baffle the research community