Did the 1990 Manjil-Rudbar earthquake postpone a massive earthquake in Tehran?

Question

In this site (published on 6 November 2001) I found the following information:

Historical data suggest there is a major earthquake in Tehran every 158 years and the last one there was in 1830.

The 1990 Manjil-Rudbar earthquake occured 160 years after the last major earthquake in Tehran, just 2 years after reaching the 158 years interval.

Can we say the 1990 earthquake postponed a major earthquake in Tehran for another century?

It's true that the fault that caused the 1990 earthquake differs from the fault that caused the 1830 one; but the epicenters are close in a geographical sense and the seismic energy of the Earth got evacuated well in the region after the 1990 earthquake.

There was alao a 5.2 magnitude earthquake near Tehran on 2017-12-20; but that can't be counted a major earthquake. The 1830 earthquake had a magnitude of 7.1.

P.S. I don't know if evacuated is a good word here.

Answer 1

Statements such as:

Historical data suggest there is a major earthquake in Tehran every 158 years

should not be interpreted as a number without variation. It is an average number of years. What the statement doesn't state is the error range for the 158 year time period.

Additionally, such a statement is a very general statement. The statement doesn't state which locations in Iran this applies to, or which fault or faults it applies to. One cannot draw to many conclusions from it.