Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide has issued a bulletin analyzing the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck southwestern Mexico yesterday. Dr. Tao Lai, Principal Engineer at AIR Worldwide, explained that the “tectonic setting of western Oaxaca is shaped by the subduction of the Cocos plate beneath the North American plate along a zone known as the Middle American trench, which repeatedly generates large magnitude earthquake events. Since 1973, the region within 200 kilometers [125 miles] of the epicenter of today’s event has experienced 20 seismic events exceeding M 6.0, and seven events exceeding M 7.0.