Abstract: After the M6.4 Baotou earthquake in Inner Mongolia in May 1996, the M6.2 South Yellow Sea earthquake in November 1996, the M6.2 Zhangbei-Shangyi earthquake on January 10,1998,another M≥6 earthquake occurred in North China. Before this earthquake, regional seismicity showed obvious anomalous characteristics and the medium-term prediction was quite successful. Unfortunately, the short-term and imminent predictions were not made for this earthquake. It was not only due to the complexity of earthquake development process and the extreme difficulty in earthquake prediction, but also to a certain problem regarding the technical thinking for earthquake prediction. In recent years, the authors have paid great attention to the seismic conditions in north-west Beijing —the boundary area of Shanxi, Hebei and Inner Mongolia, and have discovered many items of seismicity anomalies characterized by bands of seismicity. To rethink the precursory anomaly phenomena and the processof prediction before the M6.2 Zhangbei-Shangyi earthquake will be of great significance for the earthquake prediction in the future.

Key words: Seismic activity, Earthquade prediction, Zhangbei-Shangyi earthquake