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Currently earthquakes can not exactly be predicted, scientists can estimate the probability that an earthquake of a given size will affect a given location over a certain number of years, but it's still not possible to actually know if or when an earthquake will occur.

China began trying to predict earthquakes in the 1970s but it was not so successful, they issued over 30 false predictions and only 2 correct ones. Japan attempted predictions around the same time which ultimately failed when an earthquake struck the city of Kobe in 1995. Several predictions were made by other countries throughout the 70-90s but almost all were entirely inaccurate.

A good example of this would be the Parkfield earthquake prediction,the USGS predicted an earthquake to occur in Parkfield California between 1985 and 1993, this prediction was based upon regularly occurring earthquakes in the area in the early 1900s. These failed to occur but an earthquake did occur in that same area in 2004, showing some regularity in earthquakes, making predictions slightly more plausible.

So, to date the only prediction method available is probability.

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12y ago

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