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Scientists in California have analysed 101 major earthquakes around the Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped geological disaster zone, between 1990 and 2016.

They believe a cluster of tremors around the area could indicate a “big one” is due to hit.

Earthquakes have already struck in Japan, Tawain, Guam and Indonesia in the past few weeks.

Thorne Lay, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, said: "Based on the clustering of earthquakes in space and time, the area that has just slipped is actually more likely to have another failure."