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[Phys-L] earthquake



I read a Yahoo news article from yesterday (Sunday) from the Asian
Associated Press. In it the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute
said that "all the planet is vibrating" from the quake, and that the quake
even disturbed the Earth's rotation. Nothing more specific regarding this
phenomena was mentioned.

Can any internal force disrupt the Earth's rotation? And if the quake
really changed the Earth's movement, is it large enough to detect? I know
that tidal friction is slowing the Earth's rotation over time, but that's
an external force from the Moon causing the water to rise/fall and hit the
land masses.