Does science now have the means to predict when and where a Earthquake will strike?

Question

I saw a video of the May quake in Sichuan, Province China, the quake that killed 90 Thousand people, and there was a strange rainbow shape glow in the skies about 15 minutes before the quake struck. What are your comments about methods to predict such disasters. Are we on the verge of such a prediction?

Answer 1

Dear friend I am the one issued the warning 2 hours before Tsunami struck our coast and I issued the denial of Tsunami attack in several other occassions.But the meteorological department is fearing to question me about the fact. It was possible just because of my simple instrumental mechanisim and my close dedicated observations. Read my hundreds of answers given in yahoo about eath science. I have explained what are the possible way of predictions and what are all the changes you can expect before earthquake struck our place.You can read in Google or in Yahoo by typing my name as A.Ganapathy India. I was appreciated by Yahoo as super star in earth science.  

Answer 2

To a degree, yes. Scientists are aware of fault lines and shifts in plate tectonics. If a plate begins moving, geologists can predict an earthquake.

Answer 3

We don't yet have the means to predict earthquakes, no.  Scientists are able to estimate which areas are likely to be due/overdue for one, but pinning down when and where one will occur has been devilishly elusive.

Answer 4

Earthquakes in some locations can be predicted in a very general way, but not with enough specificity to allow people to be evacuated or to take protective actions.

From Wikipedia:

An earthquake prediction is a prediction that an earthquake in a specific magnitude range will occur in a specific region and time window. Predictions are considered as such to the extent that they are reliable for practical, as well as scientific, purposes. Although there is evidence that at least some earthquakes in some tectonic regimes are predictable with useful accuracy of time and space, the reliability and reproducibility of prediction techniques have not been established and are therefore generally not accepted by seismologists. For practical purposes, seismologists bring forth seismic hazard assessment programs by estimating the probabilities that a given earthquake or suite of earthquakes will occur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_...

A great deal of research has been done on earthquake prediction without producing usable results.  At present, there does not seem to be much optimism that useful earthquake predictions can be made in the foreseeable future.