Earthquake Early Warning System Application for School Disaster Prevention

Earthquake early warning systems (EEWS) based on nationwide earthquake observation networks in Japan are applied to earthquake damage mitigation in many fields. The authors have developed a real-time earthquake information (RTEI) application for school disaster prevention. This paper describes, first an EEWS demonstration test at an elementary school in Sendai and extended demonstration tests for three other elementary schools and a junior high school. Then, the transmission of RTEI using an intranet connecting schools is described, together with demonstration test using the Schools in Wide Area Networks in Miyagi Prefecture (Miyagi-SWAN), Japan. These demonstration tests were conducted as part of a government project. This paper also addresses a questionnaire investigation on EEWS applications in schools which was also conducted in the project. The experience of a real earthquake, the June 14, 2008, Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku Earthquake (M7.2), is then described. Lessons learned from the demonstration tests in schools are summarized.

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Design and implementation of a mobile device app for network-based earthquake early warning systems (EEWSs): application to the PRESTo EEWS in southern Italy

Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ◽

10.5194/nhess-20-921-2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (4) ◽

pp. 921-931

Author(s):

Simona Colombelli ◽

Francesco Carotenuto ◽

Luca Elia ◽

Aldo Zollo

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning System ◽

Southern Italy ◽

Warning System ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Mobile App ◽

Earthquake Early Warning ◽

Wide Audience ◽

Ground Shaking ◽

Earthquake Early Warning System

Abstract. A fundamental feature of any earthquake early warning system is the ability of rapidly broadcast earthquake information to reach a wide audience of potential end users and stakeholders, in an intuitive, customizable way. Smartphones and other mobile devices are nowadays continuously connected to the Internet and represent the ideal tools for earthquake alerts dissemination to inform a large number of users about the potential damaging shaking of an impending earthquake. Here we present a mobile app (named ISNet EWApp or simply EWApp) for Android devices which can receive the alerts generated by a network-based Early Warning system. Specifically, the app receives the earthquake alerts generated by the PRESTo EEWS, which is currently running on the accelerometric stations of the Irpinia Seismic Network (ISNet) in southern Italy. In the absence of alerts, EWApp displays the standard bulletin of seismic events that have occurred within the network. In the event of a relevant earthquake, the app has a dedicated module to predict the expected ground-shaking intensity and the available lead time at the user's position and to provide customized messages to inform the user about the proper reaction to adopt during the alert. We first present the architecture of both the network-based system and EWApp and then describe its essential operational modes. The app is designed in a way that is easily exportable to any other network-based early warning system.

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Could a Decentralized Onsite Earthquake Early Warning System Help in Mitigating Seismic Risk in Northeastern Italy? The Case of the 1976 Ms 6.5 Friuli Earthquake

Seismological Research Letters ◽

10.1785/0220200177 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 91 (6) ◽

pp. 3323-3333

Author(s):

Stefano Parolai ◽

Luca Moratto ◽

Michele Bertoni ◽

Chiara Scaini ◽

Alessandro Rebez

Keyword(s):

Real Time ◽

Early Warning ◽

Seismic Risk ◽

Warning System ◽

Strong Motion ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Earthquake Early Warning ◽

Industrial Facilities ◽

Earthquake Early Warning System ◽

The Impact

Abstract In May 1976, a devastating earthquake of magnitude Ms 6.5 occurred in Friuli, Italy, resulting in 976 deaths, 2000 injured, and 60,000 homeless. It is notable that, at the time of the earthquake, only one station was installed in the affected region. The resulting lack of information, combined with a dearth of mitigation planning for responding to such events, lead to a clear picture of the impact of the disaster being available only after a few days. This region is now covered by nearly 100 seismological and strong-motion stations operating in real time. Furthermore, 30 average-cost strong-motion stations have been recently added, with the goals of improving the density of real-time ground-motion observations and measuring the level of shaking recorded at selected buildings. The final goal is to allow rapid impact estimations to be made to improve the response of civil protection authorities. Today, considering the higher density seismological network, new efforts in terms of the implementation and testing of earthquake early warning systems as a possible tool for mitigating seismic risk are certainly worthwhile. In this article, we show the results obtained by analyzing in playback and using an algorithm for decentralized onsite earthquake early warning, broadband synthetic strong-motion data calculated at 18 of the stations installed in the region, while considering the magnitude and location of the 1976 Friuli earthquake. The analysis shows that the anisotropy of the lead times is related not only to the finite nature of the source but also to the slip distribution. A reduction of 10% of injured persons appears to be possible if appropriate mitigating actions are employed, such as the development of efficient automatic procedures that improve the safety of strategic industrial facilities.

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Design, Implementation and Testing of a Network-Based Earthquake Early Warning System in Greece

Frontiers in Earth Science ◽

10.3389/feart.2021.667160 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

M. Bracale ◽

S. Colombelli ◽

L. Elia ◽

V. Karakostas ◽

A. Zollo

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning System ◽

Warning System ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Seismic Network ◽

Earthquake Early Warning ◽

Data Set ◽

Ionian Islands ◽

Earthquake Early Warning System ◽

Real Earthquake

In this study we implemented and tested the Earthquake Early Warning system PRESTo (PRobabilistic and Evolutionary early warning System, Satriano et al., 2011) on the Greek Ionian islands of Lefkada, Zakynthos and Kefalonia. PRESTo is a free and open source platform for regional Earthquake Early Warning developed at the University of Naples Federico II, which is currently under experimentation in Southern Italy, in the area covered by the Irpinia Seismic Network. The three Ionian islands selected for this study are located on the North-Western part of the Hellenic trench. Here the seismicity rate and the seismic hazard, coupled with the vulnerability of existing critical infrastructures, make this region among the highest seismic risk areas in Europe, where the application of Earthquake Early Warning systems may become a useful strategy to mitigate the potential damage caused by earthquakes. Here we studied the feasibility of implementing an Earthquake Early Warning system on an existing seismic network, which was not specifically made for earthquake early warning purposes, and evaluated the performance of the system, using a data set of real-earthquake recordings. We first describe the technical details of the implementation of PRESTo in the area of interest, including the preliminary parameter configuration and the empirical scaling relationship calibration. Then we evaluated the performance of the system through the off-line analysis of a database of real earthquake records belonging to the most recent M > 4.0 earthquakes occurred in the area. We evaluated the performance in terms of source parameter estimation (location, magnitude), accuracy of ground shaking prediction and lead-time analysis. Finally, we show the preliminary results of the real-time application of PRESTo, performed during the period 01–31 July 2019.

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Rapid Estimation of the Epicentral Distance in the Earthquake Early Warning System around the Tehran Region, Iran

Seismological Research Letters ◽

10.1785/0220180375 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sahar Nazeri ◽

Zaher Hossein Shomali

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning System ◽

Epicentral Distance ◽

Time Windows ◽

Warning System ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Earthquake Early Warning ◽

Ground Shaking ◽

Earthquake Early Warning System ◽

Tehran Region

ABSTRACT The estimation of epicentral distance is a critical step in earthquake early warning systems (EEWSs) that is necessary to characterize the level of expected ground shaking. In this study, two rapid methodologies, that is, B‐Δ and C‐Δ, are evaluated to estimate the epicentral distance for use in the EEWSs around the Tehran region. Traditionally, the B and C coefficients are computed using acceleration records, however, in this study, we utilize both acceleration and velocity waveforms for obtaining a suitable B‐Δ and C‐Δ relationships for the Tehran region. In comparison with observations from Japan, our measurements fall within the range of scatter. However, our results show a lower trend, which can strongly depend on the few numbers of events and range of magnitude (small‐to‐moderate) of earthquakes used in the current research. To improve our result, we include some large earthquakes from Iran, Italy, and Japan with magnitude larger than 5.9. Although the optimal trend is finally obtained by fitting a line to the distance‐averaged points, we conclude that the same trend and relationship as Japan can be used in Tehran early warning system. We also found that B and C parameters are strongly compatible to each other. As time windows of 3.0 and 0.5 s after the P onset are chosen respectively to compute the B and C values, so by selecting the C parameter as a proxy of B parameter to estimate the epicentral distance, we may save significant time in order of about 2.5 s in any earthquake early warning applications.

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Application of Earthquake Early Warning System to Seismic-Isolated Buildings

Journal of Disaster Research ◽

10.20965/jdr.2009.p0242 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 570-578 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Keiichi Okada ◽

◽

Yutaka Nakamura ◽

Masaaki Saruta

Keyword(s):

Structural Health Monitoring ◽

Health Monitoring ◽

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning System ◽

Warning System ◽

Earthquake Early Warning ◽

Building Structures ◽

Disaster Prevention ◽

Earthquake Early Warning System ◽

Structural Health

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has developed an earthquake early warning system to release information in the event of earthquake, and this system has been in practical use since 2007. Meanwhile, structural health monitoring technology has been attracting attention from those who want to save time in determining the structural health of buildings and who want to detect earthquake resistance performance and damage sustained. Practical applications of this technology have also begun. Seismic-isolated buildings have been developed to protect building structures and keep properties safe from earthquakes and this is significantly effective means to protect properties as a preventative measure against earthquake. The technology is based on the past experiences of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. Seismic disaster prevention technologies have been further developed since then against the severe, large scale damage to buildings and loss of human life which could be incurred by earthquakes. This should be a system as safe and secure hardware and software as a system in building structures, in addition to the current situation and earthquake disaster prevention of structure itself. This paper describes the earthquake early warning system used to tackle the threat of earthquakes. And the paper shows two applications of the earthquake early warning system and structural health monitoring technologies to seismic-isolated buildings.

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“Shaking in 5 Seconds!”—Performance and User Appreciation Assessment of the Earthquake Network Smartphone-Based Public Earthquake Early Warning System

Seismological Research Letters ◽

10.1785/0220210180 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Rémy Bossu ◽

Francesco Finazzi ◽

Robert Steed ◽

Laure Fallou ◽

István Bondár

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning System ◽

Seismic Station ◽

Warning System ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Earthquake Early Warning ◽

Individual Risk ◽

Warning Systems ◽

Earthquake Early Warning System ◽

Earthquake Early Warning Systems

Abstract Public earthquake early warning systems have the potential to reduce individual risk by warning people of approaching tremors, but their development has been hampered by costly infrastructure. Furthermore, both users’ understanding of such a service and their reactions to actual warnings have been the topic of only a few surveys. The smartphone app of the Earthquake Network initiative utilizes users’ smartphones as motion detectors and provides the first example of a purely smartphone-based earthquake early warning system, without the need for dedicated seismic station infrastructure and operating in multiple countries. We demonstrate that this system has issued early warnings in multiple countries, including for damaging shaking levels, and hence that this offers an alternative to conventional early warning systems in the foreseeable future. We also show that although warnings are understood and appreciated by users, notably to get psychologically prepared, only a fraction take protective actions such as “drop, cover, and hold.”

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Feasibility study of earthquake early warning in Tehran, Iran

Journal of Seismology ◽

10.1007/s10950-021-10014-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

S. Enferadi ◽

Z. H. Shomali ◽

A. Niksejel

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning System ◽

Warning System ◽

Earthquake Early Warning ◽

Disaster Mitigation ◽

Lead Times ◽

Worst Case ◽

Earthquake Parameters ◽

Earthquake Early Warning System ◽

Earthquake Scenarios

AbstractIn this study, we examine the scientific feasibility of an Earthquake Early Warning System in Tehran, Iran, by the integration of the Tehran Disaster Mitigation and Management Organization (TDMMO) accelerometric network and the PRobabilistic and Evolutionary early warning SysTem (PRESTo). To evaluate the performance of the TDMMO-PRESTo system in providing the reliable estimations of earthquake parameters and the available lead-times for The Metropolis of Tehran, two different approaches were analyzed in this work. The first approach was assessed by applying the PRESTo algorithms on waveforms from 11 moderate instrumental earthquakes that occurred in the vicinity of Tehran during the period 2009–2020. Moreover, we conducted a simulation analysis using synthetic waveforms of 10 large historical earthquakes that occurred in the vicinity of Tehran. We demonstrated that the six worst-case earthquake scenarios can be considered for The Metropolis of Tehran, which are mostly related to the historical and instrumental events that occurred in the southern, eastern, and western parts of Tehran. Our results indicate that the TDMMO-PRESTo system could provide reliable and sufficient lead-times of about 1 to 15s and maximum lead-times of about 20s for civil protection purposes in The Metropolis of Tehran.

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An Efficient Alarm Notification Algorithm for Earthquake Early Warning System

Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Advanced Network ◽

10.7125/apan.32.16 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 32 (0) ◽

pp. 131

Author(s):

TingYun Chi ◽

Te-Lung Liu ◽

Li-Chi Ku ◽

Sy-Yen Kuo

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning System ◽

Warning System ◽

Earthquake Early Warning ◽

Earthquake Early Warning System

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Communication architecture of an early warning system

Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ◽

10.5194/nhess-10-2215-2010 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. 2215-2228 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

M. Angermann ◽

M. Guenther ◽

K. Wendlandt

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning System ◽

Satellite Communication ◽

Warning System ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Warning Systems ◽

Communication Architecture ◽

Design And Implementation ◽

Communication Links

Abstract. This article discusses aspects of communication architecture for early warning systems (EWS) in general and gives details of the specific communication architecture of an early warning system against tsunamis. While its sensors are the "eyes and ears" of a warning system and enable the system to sense physical effects, its communication links and terminals are its "nerves and mouth" which transport measurements and estimates within the system and eventually warnings towards the affected population. Designing the communication architecture of an EWS against tsunamis is particularly challenging. Its sensors are typically very heterogeneous and spread several thousand kilometers apart. They are often located in remote areas and belong to different organizations. Similarly, the geographic spread of the potentially affected population is wide. Moreover, a failure to deliver a warning has fatal consequences. Yet, the communication infrastructure is likely to be affected by the disaster itself. Based on an analysis of the criticality, vulnerability and availability of communication means, we describe the design and implementation of a communication system that employs both terrestrial and satellite communication links. We believe that many of the issues we encountered during our work in the GITEWS project (German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System, Rudloff et al., 2009) on the design and implementation communication architecture are also relevant for other types of warning systems. With this article, we intend to share our insights and lessons learned.

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