American seismologists at
the University of California in Berkeley have found a way to get an
advance warning seconds before an impending earthquake.
While a few seconds may not sound like much, it is enough time
for schoolchildren to dive under desks, gas and electric companies
to shut down or isolate their systems, and airports to halt takeoffs
and landings.
Richard Allen and his colleagues are now testing an early warning
system called 'ElarmS' that would predict the quake's magnitude and
its destructive potential even before it occurs.
The researchers who published their work in today's issue of
'Nature' journal are working with the US Geological Survey to
determine how accurate these warnings would be, according to a
university press release.
The system's early warnings will come after a quake rupture has
already begun but before the shaking is felt tens of miles from the
epicentre.
Allen's demonstration that this observation holds for earthquakes
around the world, from California to Taiwan and Japan, provides a
solid basis for constructing an early warning system, the release
said.
Once the magnitude of the quake has been estimated, computers can
predict areas of 'serious ground-shaking' based on an understanding
of a particular fault. Within five seconds, warnings could be sent
to cities in the areas calculated to expect damaging ground motion.
Because humans couldn't respond fast enough, Allen said, these
warnings would have to rely on computers programmed to respond to
quakes of a certain magnitude.
