A 10-second warning may not sound like much, but when it comes to earthquakes, it’s enough time to take cover. With the magnitude 6.0 earthquake in California’s wine country still fresh in everyone’s memory, there is an increased interest in building a warning system that will alert people quickly about the possibility of a tremor on the way, said Richard Allen, director of the Seismological Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.
The university and Deutsche Telekom Innovation Laboratories are looking into the possibility that a smartphone app could send out alerts of coming quakes to cellphone users, giving them precious seconds of lead time before a tremor.
The MyShake app, still being tested, uses smartphone accelerometers and locaters to augment the information on quakes that comes from 400 seismometers in California, Allen said. Eventually, the app could warn users and provide huge amounts of additional data on earthquakes, he said.
The university and Deutsche Telekom Innovation Laboratories are looking into the possibility that a smartphone app could send out alerts of coming quakes to cellphone users, giving them precious seconds of lead time before a tremor.
The MyShake app, still being tested, uses smartphone accelerometers and locaters to augment the information on quakes that comes from 400 seismometers in California, Allen said. Eventually, the app could warn users and provide huge amounts of additional data on earthquakes, he said.
The school already has had some success with ShakeAlert, a desktop program that uses data from the seismometers to send warnings to about 150 registered test users. It gave a 5-second warning during the recent quake near Napa, California, to users in Berkeley 25 miles away, Allen said.
MyShake would enlist phones as additional quake sensors. The app, running in the phone’s background, has an algorithm that detects when the phone is stationary and then collects data on any shaking. Several phones in the same area sending shake data at the same time could help identify earthquakes sooner, especially those that don’t happen near existing sensors. Eventually, Allen said, MyShake and ShakeAlert could be interlaced into one system.
“We like to think this is a big development in the next generation of the seismometer network,” Allen said.
Getting an early warning system rolling in California will take millions of dollars and at least a couple of years to build, if the tests are successful, Allen said. In the meantime, a number of free or inexpensive apps for mobile phones and tablets can give alerts, advice on earthquake survival and information for friends and family of those living in earthquake zones around the globe.
But it’s not just people who live along the 800-mile San Andreas Fault who would benefit from such technology. Forty-five states or US territories are at moderate to high risk of damaging earthquakes. The American Red Cross Earthquake app, for the iPhone and Android phones, is the fourth-most-downloaded of the 11 disaster-related apps that the Red Cross has developed since 2012.
“What makes it special is it alerts in real time,” said Dom Tolli, vice president for product management at the Red Cross division of preparedness, health and safety services.
As soon as the federal Geological Survey issues a notification - generally within five minutes after a quake has occurred in the United States and a half-hour in other parts of the world - the information is sent directly to your phone, based on the filters you set. You can arrange to be notified of even the slightest rumble within a 500-mile radius of your location or an unlimited number of other cities or ZIP codes in North America and in United States territories.
The app also includes information about earthquakes, a global map of quakes of 4.5 magnitude or higher occurring in the last 30 days, links to your phone’s flashlight, as well as an emergency siren and a page from which to send an “I’m safe” message via email, text, Facebook or Twitter.
QuakeFeed is a free app for the iPhone (there is no Android version) that displays earthquakes, color-coded by intensity, as reported by the Geological Survey. Push notifications come free for any quake worldwide at or above magnitude 6. For a $1.99 (Rs 122) upgrade, you can set notifications for specific locations and magnitudes.
MyShake would enlist phones as additional quake sensors. The app, running in the phone’s background, has an algorithm that detects when the phone is stationary and then collects data on any shaking. Several phones in the same area sending shake data at the same time could help identify earthquakes sooner, especially those that don’t happen near existing sensors. Eventually, Allen said, MyShake and ShakeAlert could be interlaced into one system.
“We like to think this is a big development in the next generation of the seismometer network,” Allen said.
Getting an early warning system rolling in California will take millions of dollars and at least a couple of years to build, if the tests are successful, Allen said. In the meantime, a number of free or inexpensive apps for mobile phones and tablets can give alerts, advice on earthquake survival and information for friends and family of those living in earthquake zones around the globe.
But it’s not just people who live along the 800-mile San Andreas Fault who would benefit from such technology. Forty-five states or US territories are at moderate to high risk of damaging earthquakes. The American Red Cross Earthquake app, for the iPhone and Android phones, is the fourth-most-downloaded of the 11 disaster-related apps that the Red Cross has developed since 2012.
“What makes it special is it alerts in real time,” said Dom Tolli, vice president for product management at the Red Cross division of preparedness, health and safety services.
As soon as the federal Geological Survey issues a notification - generally within five minutes after a quake has occurred in the United States and a half-hour in other parts of the world - the information is sent directly to your phone, based on the filters you set. You can arrange to be notified of even the slightest rumble within a 500-mile radius of your location or an unlimited number of other cities or ZIP codes in North America and in United States territories.
The app also includes information about earthquakes, a global map of quakes of 4.5 magnitude or higher occurring in the last 30 days, links to your phone’s flashlight, as well as an emergency siren and a page from which to send an “I’m safe” message via email, text, Facebook or Twitter.
QuakeFeed is a free app for the iPhone (there is no Android version) that displays earthquakes, color-coded by intensity, as reported by the Geological Survey. Push notifications come free for any quake worldwide at or above magnitude 6. For a $1.99 (Rs 122) upgrade, you can set notifications for specific locations and magnitudes.
The QuakeFeed display toggles between a world map and a list of earthquakes, which can be sorted alphabetically or by magnitude. The list also gives the magnitude and depth of the earthquake, as well as the number of miles from the phone’s location. Tap on the arrow at the right, and you get a map of the area in question.
QuakeFeed also has a news feed, with links to articles about quake-related topics and earthquake preparedness.
Facebook recently introduced a stand-alone feature called Safety Check to notify friends and relatives in the event of a natural disaster. Should Facebook sense you are in a disaster area because of your home location or record or recent Internet activity, it sends a message asking if you are safe, and you have the option of pressing the “I’m Safe” button or one that says you are not in the affected area.
Some other earthquake apps also have filters that provide notifications based on magnitude or distance, but often for a premium. Oz Quake for iPhones and Android phones, for instance, charges 99 cents (Rs 61) for the filter upgrade and an audible alert.
For a perspective on just how risky life on planet Earth can be, Disaster Alert is the Pacific Disaster Center’s way of keeping you up-to-date on just about every type of hazard. Disaster Alert displays either a global map or a list that includes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, disease outbreaks, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, droughts and many more.
All that unfiltered information is free. But alerts can be customised by severity and location for subscriptions of $2.99 (Rs 184) for three months, $5.99 (Rs 369) for six months or $9.99 (Rs 616) for one year. Proceeds go to enhance the platform, according to the centre’s website.
