Early warning system for earthquakes could help prepare
New Zealanders have welcomed the idea of an early warning system for earthquakes so they can be mentally prepared, as well as drop, cover and hold in the moments before major shaking occurs.
An EQC-funded project led by Dr Julia Becker from the Joint Centre for Disaster Research at Massey University and GNS Science has surveyed how Kiwis would use an early warning system that could give a few seconds or up to two minutes warning before they felt significant earthquake shaking.
Over 3000 New Zealanders responded to the survey with 97 per cent stating that they thought an earthquake early warning would be useful, particularly for taking some sort of action to keep themselves safe, and 81 per cent saying they would drop, cover, hold.
EQC’s head of resilience strategy and research, Dr Jo Horrocks says the research project was extremely valuable to see how New Zealand would benefit from such a huge investment.
“Other countries already have an early warning system but they can be expensive, so it’s important to understand how New Zealanders might use the system before any planning starts,” she said.
“The survey has already delivered interesting and useful results. I’m looking forward to the full report.” Julia said that she had run a similar survey in Japan where an earthquake early warning system has been in place since 2007.
She said survey participants also said they would move away from dangerous areas or get out of a lift.
Julia also spoke to groups of service providers including power, water, rail and hospitals.
“We’re now analysing the results of all our research and will be reporting our conclusions and recommendations at the end of this year,” she said.
An early warning system uses the two types of waves created by an earthquake with the P-wave arriving before the actual shaking starts.
P-waves travel very fast and are picked up by seismographs almost immediately to compute the location and size and rapidly send out expected shaking strength and arrival time.