How to warn people who are at risk of an earthquake? Unfortunately, the existing method is quite expensive. Common Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems use hundreds of expensive special detectors, satellite data transmission, own servers for each area, and thus cost hundreds of millions of crowns.
For example, the ShakeAlert system on the US West Coast, which protects about 50 million people, stood 38 million dollars, roughly 840 million crowns. And another $16 million is paid each year by the states of California, Oregon and Washington just for maintenance. Even so, it has limitations – it can give false and inaccurate warnings, and areas near the epicenter may not warn at all.
You can listen to and view information and footage in the introductory video report.
However, a Czech researcher from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic is now preparing an early warning system that would offer similar and better help and would also be cheaper, so that even less wealthy countries that are often exposed to this disaster could afford it. For example, it uses the regular internet and cloud storage to send and process data.
Why is the system from a Czech scientist up to a hundred times cheaper
“Our device is made from consumer electronics – from components that are commonly available. So, for example, we use a seismic sensor that is relatively similar to what you have in your phone, even though ours is a bit more sensitive and more expensive, but it is essentially similar,” says Václav Kuna from the Department of Geodynamics of the Institute of Geophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
“Common technologies for early warning systems use high-quality seismic sensors that cost several thousand, even tens of thousands of dollars. Ours is around a few hundred dollars. It is of course less sensitive to small earthquakes, but the point of an early warning system is not so much to record small earthquakes that no one will feel, as normal seismic networks do. We want to record the strongest tremors, and our sensor is perfect for that,” explains the researcher further in the SZ Tech report.
The inexpensive device is designed to detect tremors up to 3.5 on the Richter scale and above. The recent catastrophic earthquake on the border between Turkey and Syria reached a magnitude of 5.5 for comparison.
It is also being tested in Nepal and Haiti
However, sensors developed only since 2020 are still being tested. And since they are created in collaboration with scientists from Mexico, the first dozens of pieces went to Puerto Rico and Chile. The finished system will be universal for all states, especially those that do not pay more expensively.
For a year, 40 units have also been tested in Nepal, where an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 devastated a large part of the capital in 2015. And next month, 100 units will also fly to Haiti, where a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck in 2010. The tens of seconds given by the early warning system to leave the buildings could have saved thousands of lives there.
“The duration of the warning before the arrival of tremors depends on the distance of the user from the epicenter of the earthquake. Ideally, if we have sensors located close to the epicenter, we can evaluate and issue a report in a few seconds after the earthquake rays reach the sensor,” explains the Czech scientist.
How many seconds to hide do people get
“Unfortunately, the warning always comes late in the epicenter, we can’t provide any advance there. However, the really big earthquakes have a large fault surface and spread, for example, several hundred kilometers along this fault surface. And that then means that even several hundred kilometers from the epicenter, people are still experiencing very strong and destructive tremors,” he adds.
“The speed of propagation of the earthquake after the fault is somewhere around three kilometers per second, and we can overtake these waves – if we issue a warning within seven, eight, ten seconds after the earthquake, we can give, for example, several tens of seconds to people who are several tens of up to hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter,” calculates Václav Kuna for the editors of SZ Tech in a video report.
The method of the warning itself will then differ for each state according to its possibilities and decisions. In Haiti, for example, scientists are working with a telecommunications company there that plans to deliver warnings via text messages and sirens in large buildings. In Nepal, however, they are in contact with a government organization for managing natural disasters, which is developing a general warning system in which Czech scientists want to be included.
What does the sensor consist of?
And how does the device actually work? A small box with dimensions of 15 × 10 × 10 centimeters and weighing 200 grams hides a half-centimeter seismic, or earthquake sensor, which allows scientists to briefly monitor the movements of the Earth – more precisely, the Earth’s tectonic plates, whose collisions cause earthquakes.
“Our device actually uses two basic components. On the one hand, it is a small processor called a microcontroller, which is actually the computing unit of the device. So if we were to look at it, this is the second version of the device that has the possibility to connect to the mobile internet,” Václav Kuna points out in the report.
“If we look into that box, there is a computer or a computing unit, and under it is an accelerometer – a sensor. That is, every few milliseconds we actually look at how the Earth moves, and after we collect one second of data, the sensor sends it to cloud servers, where we process it,” he adds.
“We still have the option of connecting via an Ethernet cable or even to a Wi-Fi network. We also have internal memory there so we can store data locally when we want to. So there are more ways to connect to the platform,” describes the co-author of the device.
The sensors will also receive solar panels and will be independent
The current version of the device is intended for placement in indoor spaces, either directly in residential spaces or urban buildings. However, scientists are already working to ensure that the next generations can also be independent in nature – with their own solar panel and backup battery, which will be more demanding on their lifespan, but the components are said to be durable.
“The components are very well tested and have worked very well for many years already in other devices. The longest we have had our instruments in the field is approximately two years, and so far they have no problem surviving,” adds the scientist.
Václav Kuna from the geodynamics department of the Institute of Geophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic is currently trying to develop a seismological algorithm that will process data sent from sensors via the Internet to the cloud in real time. Along with that, the cheap early warning system should be complete and ready for market entry as a finished platform.
Perhaps on the market in a year, the sensors can also be used by mines
“The sensors are actually more or less finished. We are still working on some minor changes – both hardware and software. I think that within about a year we should be able to generate the necessary information with sufficient accuracy and certainty so that we can start issuing warnings to the general public or at least to some group of people,” adds Kuna.
A startup was also created around the development of a low-cost EEW system. His name is Grillo and he comes from Mexico, where two local scientists unsuccessfully tried to implement the idea eight years ago. It was only three years ago that development was restarted after the first Czech scientist joined the project.
“The startup’s vision is that the system can also be used for other applications that are commercial. It works on a very similar principle to that used by mines or other organizations that also have their own seismic monitoring, for example, they want to monitor tremors caused by mining or explosions in a mine,” describes the Kuna company.
“So commercial applications could then finance the development of this platform and perhaps even reduce the costs of early warning systems in various countries. We are currently finishing the first version of the system, which could also be used for commercial use, and we hope to be able to offer it in the coming months,” he adds.
According to Kuna, mines in Chile, or perhaps Armenia, could be of potential interest. For now, however, the development of the device is financed by grants – for example from the American organization Society of Exploration Geophysicists or the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The project also has support from, for example, Amazon Web Services, the technology company IBM or the Clinton Foundation.
