Hi All. This is from a report by Dennis Normile ; Mar 28, 1997

“Japan's rock-solid faith in predicting earthquakes is about to get a good shaking. A draft report to the government says the 32year-old program has not met its goal of warning the population about impending earthquakes and has overstated the chances of developing accurate forecasts. The report is the sharpest official criticism to date of the centerpiece of the country's $147-million-a-year earthquake research program.”

“The review is a normal part of Japan's earthquake-prediction research program, launched when Japan was in the vanguard of efforts to predict the time, location, and magnitude of impending earthquakes. Most of these programs, including one in the United States, gradually lost support when researchers could find little or no link between presumed precursors and earthquakes. However, Japan's prediction program has rolled on and is now midway through its seventh 5-year plan.”

“But the more than 5000 deaths in the Kobe quake, which occurred in an area not heavily instrumented, prompted officials to take a closer look at the overall research program. "Previously, the committee was really just looking at the next 5-year plan," says Masataka Ando, a professor of seismology at Kyoto University's Disaster Prevention Research Institute. The report's harsher tone also reflects the panel's rotating membership, with seismologists more skeptical of prediction replacing several firm supporters of the concept.”
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?Ver=1&Exp=06-28-2003&FMT=FT&DID=000000011370132&REQ=1&Cert=pb0ZGAoQ%2fG2HyzkgebJLczgGcutcpaaJsaKcwy1JkulQ%2biYVha5boubOgPiGn%2bvjOby3Ft3jbkSMUifZ1UvHrQ--
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The following is by MIDORI ASHIDA a freelance writer who lives in Saitama, Japan and is about the Kobe quake.

“The tragedy, when it came, was only the latest installment in a long history of false hopes and failed predictions. For centuries people had tried to divine impending earthquakes in freakish weather, in oddly behaving animals and in the arrangements of the planets. Those hopes have only heightened as earthquake studies have grown scientific. Since the mid-1960s, hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into prediction projects around the world. The results, however, have been more than discouraging: earthquakes, most seismologists now believe, are simply too complex for short term predictions. Japan's early-warning system is further proof of that failure, and the source of its crowning irony. In the seventeen years since the system was established in the Tokai district, earthquakes have killed about 400 people in Japan, not including the Kobe earthquake. All of them took place outside of the district.”
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?Ver=1&Exp=06-28-2003&FMT=FT&DID=000000010145561&REQ=1&Cert=5Swn0dmesmByHkLZu1RZ%2bjgGcutcpaaJZLfq7AGSlVtQ%2biYVha5boubOgPiGn%2bvjOby3Ft3jbkSF8sN5HjfLyw--#fulltext

There in lies the problem. The instruments they are using cover the Tokai area. There may be a hidden problem here in that it isn’t know if the instruments will give them a warning as it has never been put to the test. Covering just the Tokai area is sort of like putting all your eggs in one basket and then guarding the basket.
There are some who are saying that the same type of instrumentation should be put in the Kanto Plains area as this area has gone quiet. There are some who are saying that this quietness could mean the next large quake in the Kanto Plains area is about to occur. There are also those who say that it is too early to tell what it means. I think a couple of seismologist said it pretty clear when they said that no one really knows what it means.

Keep in mind that the same types of instruments are being used in California except in this case 5 areas are being covered. Is this sufficient? Only time will tell. Take Care…Don in creepy town

• Japan Earthquake Prediction