This combined structural approach and earthquake study allows us to propose that the MHT in the central/eastern Himalaya is segmented by stable barriers that define barrier-type earthquake families. However for each individual earthquake within a family, the rupture histories could be different. Furthermore, the greatest earthquakes could have broken the barriers and affected the patches of several families. The concept of a regular recurrence of characteristic earthquakes is therefore misleading to describe the succession of Himalayan earthquakes. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.