Historical felt intensities as a guide to earthquake hazard

Up to 150 years of historical mean felt report data at 32 key Australian to wns and cities were tested for completeness and converted to intensity recu rrence intervals using extreme-value analysis, ii was found that the backwa rd extrapolation of the mean modelled results of the most recent earthquake hazard study for these same localities fell within the 95% confidence inte rval derived from the regression of these historical data. Historical maxim um felt intensities in the same towns and cities of Australia were used to show that damaging intensities of MM7 (or more) can be expected at suscepti ble sites at one (or more) of these centres, on average at least once every decade. Hence identification of the susceptible sites in each of these loc alities should be a priority.