The entire northern India, along the Himalaya mountains and the frontal Indo-Ganga plains, is prone to occasional destructive earthquakes. Historical records show that in these earthquakes more than sixty thousand lives were lost as weil as causing immeasureable misery to the survivors (Oldham, 1883, 1899, Rao, 1926; Middlemiss, 1910; Milne, 1911; Auden and Ghosh, 1934; Goe 1934; 1953). The shadows of a possible occurrence of a major earthquake loom large in these regions because the physical processes causing the catastrophic events continue on a geological time scale. Although scientists are presently trying to understand and model the processes that lead up to the fracturing of rocks and causing earthquakes so that the earthquakes could possibly be precisely predicted, the goal still appears to be a distant one. However, so far as saving of civil works is concerned, an earthquake prediction has somewhat limited utility because the efforts to strengthen structures would probably be directed to only the most important ones. On the other hand if information regarding the expected damaging earthquakes in an area is available, the structures could be designed to withstand damage, should such an earthquake occur during the life time of the utility of the structure. Owing to the uncertainties in the time of occurence, the location and the magnitude of earthquakes, they can be con- sidered as a random process. Accordingly, the estimates of the seismic hazard can suitably be made on the basis of a statistical model of earthquake occurence.