The upper part of the figure below, displays space-time distribution the sequence of earthquakes with magnitude 4.0 or above from the circle centered at 54°S and 158°E . The distance along the belt is measured from the center of the circle in projection onto seismic belt axis. The lower part shows the seven running averages of the modified M8 algorithm in the same circle: The extreme values for these functions marked with dots on the diagram concentrate in the interval from July 1985 to July 1988 (light gray rectangle). This coincidence would have started an alarm for the next 5 years (gray rectangle). The occurrence of the 1989 Macquarie earthquake (vertical line) falls into this period.