Unfortunately for the science of earthquakeforecasting (though fortunately for the residents of Parkfield and Tokyo), neither of the predicted shocks has yet happened.
He points out that, with the exception of an informal system in California, no country in the world has yet set up regular probabilistic earthquakeforecasting that can be used to guide emergency actions.
Thomas Jordan, an Earth scientist at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, who chaired an international review of earthquakeforecasting in Italy in the wake of L'Aquila's quake, says that these calculations must be put into context.