Accurate prediction of the 2022 MS 6.9 Menyuan and MS 6.8 Luding earthquake epicentres

In 2022, the M S 6.9 Menyuan (Qinghai Province) and M S 6.8 Luding (Sichuan Province) earthquakes occurred successively on China’s North–South seismic belt. Both earthquakes caused serious property losses, and the Luding earthquake caused 100 + casualties. Gravity observations performed in the North–South Seismic Belt before the two earthquakes indicate that gravity changes occurred near the epicentres and exhibited four-quadrant distributions. In this study, We reviewed the successful prediction of these two earthquakes by using gravity data. The distances between the actual and predicted epicenters of the two earthquakes were