Seismicity parameters for important urban agglomerations in India

India’s urban population has increased in the recent times. An earthquake near an urban agglomeration has the potential to cause severe damage. In this article, seismicity parameters for region surrounding important urban agglomerations in India are estimated. A comprehensive earthquake catalogue for the region (6°E–42°E latitude and 60°N–100°N longitude) including historic and pre-historic events has been compiled from various sources. To estimate the parameters, past earthquake data in a control region of radius 300 km has been assembled to quantify the seismicity around each urban agglomeration. The collected earthquake data is first evaluated for its completeness. From combined (historical and instrumental) data, the seismicity parameters b-value, seismic activity rate, λ and maximum expected magnitude (m _max ) have been obtained from the methodology proposed by Kijko and Graham (1998). The obtained activity rates indicate that region surrounding Guwahati urban agglomeration is the most seismically active region followed by Srinagar, Patna, Amritsar and Chandigarh.