Hi All. Japan has poured more money into earthquake prediction research then any other country in the world. In 1978, a law was passed to provide for adequate warning to be given in the event of a major earthquake so that emergency services could be put on full alert. An earthquake prediction council was formed to issue such warnings. The nearest it got to do this job was in 1983, when a foreshock was held as a pointer to a subsequent main event of magnitude of 7.7 within the sea of Japan. The only snag was that the two events occurred 12 days apart. The Japan Research Institute concluded that had the emergency measures been introduced for 12 days running -- trains stopped, banks, post-offices, and departmental stores closed, the costs would have amounted to more than 700 billion yen a day -- ie, more than the cost of the damage!

In the early 90s, Japan's extensive network failed to anticipate about four major earthquakes but this was played down because the events had occurred in the sparsely populated areas of Hokkaido and and Honshu. But, in 1995, forecasters miserably failed to warn people about the Kobe earthquake, which killed 6,400 people, and that too in an area, which was supposed to be seismically inactive. This led Dr Kiyoo Mogi to quit his post as the government's top earthquake adviser because of the futility of his task.

If that was the outcome after having spent about Yen 160 billion ($1.3 billion plus) over 30 years on prediction research, the Geodesy Council of Japan's ministry of education felt with some justification that earthquake prediction research should be abandoned and the resources diverted to designing quake-resistant buildings and planning better disaster management strategies.

USGS targets just 20 percent of its $44 million budget to studying the physics of the earth's seismic movements, hoping one day to use the information in predicting quakes. However, 40 percent of the USGS budget goes to mitigation and hazard assessment "If you focus on mitigation, you're going to decrease the losses of an earthquake wherever they might occur. So, it's more of a sure thing," said Bill Bakun, a USGS geophysicist. The remaining 40 percent covers the cost of monitoring earthquakes when they occur.

As one can see it is far more cost affective to prepare for the earthquake then it is trying to predict it. Take Care…Don in creepy town

• Loma Prieta Quake