)
A 10-second warning may not sound like much, but when it comes to earthquakes, it's enough time to take cover. 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.
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. "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.
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.
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, colour-coded by intensity, as reported by the United States Geological Survey. Push notifications come free for any quake worldwide at or above magnitude 6.
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.
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.
© 2014 The New York Times
