ORIGINAL PAPER Attenuation relation predicted observed ground motion of Gorkha Nepal earthquake of April 25, 2015 Raed Ahmad 1 • Ramesh P. Singh 2 Received: 6 June 2015 / Accepted: 15 September 2015 / Published online: 22 September 2015 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract This paper discusses comparison of recent observed ground motion parameters of Gorkha Nepal earthquake of April 25, 2015 (M w 7.8) with the predicted ground motion parameters using existing attenuation relation of the Himalayan region. The earthquake took about 8000 lives and destroyed thousands of buildings of poor quality, and the earthquake was felt by millions of people living in Nepal, China, India, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. The knowledge of ground parameters is very important in developing seismic code of seismic-prone regions like Himalaya for better design of buildings. The ground parameters recorded in recent earthquake event and aftershocks are compared with attenuation relations for the Himalayan region, and the predicted ground motion param- eters show good correlation with the observed ground parameters. The results discussed in this paper will be of great use to civil engineers in updating existing building codes in the Himalayan and surrounding regions and also for the evaluation of seismic hazards. The results clearly show that the attenuation relation developed for the Himalayan region should only be used, and other attenuation relations based on other regions fail to provide good estimate of observed ground motion parameters. Keywords Strong ground motion Á PGA Á Attenuation relation Á Nepal earthquake Á Himalayan earthquake Á Seismicity Á Building codes 1 Introduction The attenuation relation is very important in predicting ground motion parameters (acceleration and velocity) during an earthquake. These relations are very important in developing building codes and designing seismic-resistant buildings to sustain ground & Ramesh P. Singh rsingh@chapman.edu 1 National Earthquake Center, Damascus, Syria 2 School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Schmid College of Science and Technology, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA 123 Nat Hazards (2016) 80:311–328 DOI 10.1007/s11069-015-1969-2