Scientists at the volcano observatory say that unlike earthquakes, where a swarm of small temblors may signal a large quake to follow, the small slip is not a sign of larger slips to come.
The proliferation of personal technology offers some huge opportunities on the quake safety front, most notably a fledgling early warning system that one day could send alerts of a coming quake to phones, computers and tablets up to a minute before the shaking begins.
People have been educated on where to shelter during a quake, where to congregate afterwards and how to give basic first aid.
A study commissioned by the conference organizers and released Monday suggested that a similar quake to 1906 could prove as terrible, if not worse.
The government has acknowledged that filling the reservoir has increased the frequency of earthquakes, but denied that it had anything to do with a powerful quake to the northwest in Sichuan on 12 May 2008, that killed 87,000 people.
His survey indicates that the offshore slope there is normally stable, so it must have taken a large quake to set it in motion.
In terms of public awareness and reaction, these foreshocks could turn out to be quite important because they will have reminded people what they are supposed to do in a big quake to protect themselves.
Now, there is no hard-and-fast rule about what constitutes a "big" quake, to say nothing of the (always-capitalized) "Big One".
