The dawning of a new year always prompts a host of predictions about what might be coming in the months ahead, and 2024 has proved to be no exception. Minutes into the first of January, Japan was struck by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake that killed at least 62 people and devastated buildings in Ishikawa prefecture, leading to immediate claims that it fulfilled one of Nostradamus’ predictions for 2024. Given that Nostradamus was working in the 16th century and that both the meaning of his predictions and the dates when he believed they would come true are far from easy to discern. It requires a considerable amount of interpretation and, in which he wrote, “The dry Earth will become more parched and there will be great floods,” following that up with a reference to “very great famine through pestiferous wave.” This could be taken to refer to the earthquake and the tsunami that could potentially follow it (although there was no actual tsunami with this quake) if you were to apply a very forgiving interpretation.
