The Department of Mines and Geology has been monitoring the seismicity of the Central Himalayas of Nepal since 1985. Intense microseismicity and frequent medium-size earthquakes (mL<4) tend to cluster beneath the topographic front of the Higher Himalaya. This 10--20 km deep seismicity also correlates with a zone of localized uplift that has been evidenced from geodetic data. Both microseismic and geodetic data indicate strain accumulation on a mid-crustal ramp that had been previously inferred from geological and geophysical evidence. This ramp connects a flat decollement under the Lesser and Sub-Himalaya with a deeper decollement under the Higher Himalaya, and probably acts as a geometric asperity where strain and stress build up during the interseismic period. The large Himalayan earthquakes could nucleate there and probably activate the whole flat-and-ramp system up to the blind thrusts of the Sub-Himalaya. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1995