NEW DELHI: For India’s astrologers, even at 69.4 million kilometres away, Mars is too close for comfort.The Red Planet, named after the Roman god of war, will be at its closest to Earth since 2003 on Saturday and won’t come as near for another decade, prompting some astrologers to predict trouble, destruction and plain old bad luck.

“Mars influences Earth in a big way and these days it is very close. This sort of period is adverse for humanity as a whole. Various places on Earth will see earthquakes, tornados, fires and volcanic eruptions,” Ashok Kumar Joshi, an Indian astrologer, said.

Astrology has been practised in India for thousands of years as part of a widely held belief system that the future can be divined from planets’ movements in relation to the stars.

The previous Hindu nationalist-led government went so far as to push for it as an area of scientific study at the university level, despite most scientists dismissing astrological predictions as pure superstition.

But both astronomers and astrologers agree that Mars is coming close and is sitting in one zodiac house, a celestial section defined by star patterns as seen from Earth, for six months instead of the usual 45 days.

Astrologers say this phenomenon explains why Earth has been hit recently by a series of hurricanes and earthquakes.

“Mars, which is known to be destructive, is sitting on Aries. Two months are gone and we have four more to go. Natural disasters related to fire, earth, air and water might affect people the world over,” leading Indian astrologer Niraj Mancchanda said on his website.

Astrologer Joshi said the earthquake in Pakistan and occupied Kashmir was a direct result of a rare combination of killer planetary forces and numerology.

“The worst is not yet over and bigger earthquakes could follow,” he said, adding hurricanes Katrina and Wilma were also directly related to the planetary alignment.—AFP