Can human life be saved through early warning system before the Earthquake?

Earthquakes are among the many natural calamities that have caused devastation to properties and claimed thousands of lives over the years. In fact, according to statistics, 50 to 80 earthquakes occur every single day and about 2000 each year. When an earthquake occurs, it’s difficult to tell the amount of destruction it would cause in its wake. Apart from devastating properties and buildings, earthquakes can trigger tsunami that can uproot populations or lead to loss of lives. Earthquakes kill many people because they have no warning signs and find people unprepared. Despite efforts by governments to educate the masses on earthquake warning signs and preparedness, a lot has not been accomplished.

Cause

The earth’s crust is composed of solid core, mantle (consists of molten magma) and tectonic plates. Tectonic plates are constantly moving due to convection currents triggered by molten lava inside the earth crust. This constant movement leads to either the plates sliding against each other or drifting away from each other. These interactions and drifting apart of tectonic plates underneath the earth are perceived by living organisms, humans included.

The constant movements have even led to the formation of mountains and valleys. When these plates move against each other, there is a point where they interact. In geological terminology, this meeting point is known as fault line. This fault line is sometimes known as fracture in the earth’s crust. The moment the plates begin to move, the potential energy, commonly known as stored energy, is released from the meeting point, known as hypocenter. The outcome is an earthquake.

Tectonic plates found in ocean are called oceanic plates while those found in continents are continental plates. With the movement of these tectonic plates, energy is formed and can be released once these plates meet in the so called fault line. The intensity of this released energy will also determine that of the earthquake. One can feel the earth’s shaking once energy is released from earth’s crust.

Types of Earthquake

• Tectonic Earthquakes - The earth’s crust is composed of loose, cracked fragments of lands referred to as tectonic plates. These plates are capable of moving slowly and gradually. The movement of these plates occurs in different forms; towards each other, away from each other, sliding past each other or colliding with each other. A huge tremor occurs when 2 moving tectonic plates slide over one another. This type of earthquake is known as tectonic earthquake. Tectonic earthquakes are the most prevalent kinds of earthquakes in the world. Its magnitude may be small or large.
  

• Volcanic Earthquakes - Compared to tectonic earthquakes, volcanic earthquakes are less prevalent. They typically take place before or after an eruption. Volcanic earthquakes come in two forms: long-period volcanic earthquakes and volcano-tectonic earthquakes. Volcano-tectonic earthquakes usually happen after a volcanic eruption. During an earthquake, magma erupts from inside the earth’s crust leaving a space behind.
  

• Collapse Earthquakes - These kinds of earthquakes are generally smaller and most commonly occur near underground mines. They are sometimes referred to as mine bursts. Collapse earthquakes are instigated by the pressure generated within the rocks. This kind of earthquake leads to the collapse of the roof of the mine instigating more tremors. Collapse earthquakes are prevalent in small towns where underground mines are located.
  

• Explosion Earthquakes - These are caused by nuclear explosions. They are, essentially, man triggered kind of earthquakes and represent the biggest impact of modern day nuclear war. During the 1930s nuclear tests conducted by the United Sates, numerous small towns and villages were devastated as a result of this grave act.

Effects

• Ground Shaking (big infrastructure and buildings )

• Ground Failure (Landslides and rockslides)

• Trigger tsunamis

• Leads to liquefaction and Subsidence

• Floods

Solutions

Earthquakes are devastating because it comes as a surprise. A smart solution for smart cities for early warning system can save lives and mitigates damage. Once you have an early warning system it can save a lot of money because whenever there is a moderate to large earthquake happening in or near a big city, the financial damage can be immense, not to mention the human loss in some cases. So basically what you need is a real-time seismic network - a group of monitoring stations that are working collectively, a seismic algorithm, and a way to disseminate the warning among the public.

Earthquake Early Warning (EEW), which provide stellar services and avail seismic gears, guidance and follow-up maintenance, that will perpetually keep them prepared and secured. It can calculate the back-azimuth due to using a different seismic network layout. Networks in other places like Japan and California have uniform spacing between the seismic sensors. The network of this solution deploys consists of clusters of four to five sensors in each site. Each sensor cluster is a seismic array. The seismic waves emitted from an earthquake arrive at the individual sensors of the array at different times. With the help of this time difference, we can calculate the back-azimuth. Once we have determined the back-azimuth, we can more quickly and more accurately locate the earthquake, even if it occurred outside of the network, in places where we have deployed only a few sensors. The second element in this system is a physics-based set of equations that replaces the location-specific empirical relations used in California and Japan. Location-specific empirical relations enable experts to calculate the peak ground motion (acceleration of an earthquake) at the target site.

• Collocated Seismic Detection Technologies - This features real-time integration of different types of sensors to obtain a reliable and precise result. It works by allowing a detection of more frequent weak quakes and uses them to tune-up the system.
  

• Extremely Low Latency - Processing bottlenecks are expected in case of a real earthquake event and may result in loss of time. When an actual earthquake occurs, processing bottlenecks in such moments could be fatal as it would lead to a loss of precious time. This can be avoided by giving over the heavy real time processing to the seismic endpoints.
  

• Machine Learning - You may find it interesting to know that in this systems learn more while on the job. They employ the information gotten from the sensors as training data for ML and AI algorithms which ultimately improve the system’s ability to predict accurately, the magnitude of the earthquake and its corresponding epicenter.