Earthquake a wake- up call to enhance alert systems
ON SATURDAY, September 26, parts of Cape Town were shaken by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake about 1 600km offshore of South Africa.
The following day, the Council for Geosciences ( CGS) said another earth tremor was felt at 9.12am. Fortunately, no one was injured. The CGS said there was no need to panic.
But is South Africa able to warn its citizens ahead of time about earthquakes and other imminent dangers?
The manner in which information was communicated during the recent incidents is a concern.
We can learn a lot from countries such as Mexico, where such incidents are a regular occurrence. Mexico has used technology to ensure that its citizens are better informed and warned ahead of time about earthquakes.
Mexico City is one of the few places to have a public earthquake warning system. It was the first system of its kind in the world, up and running just six years after the 1985 earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people in the capital.
The system, Sasmex, began in 1990. It has come a long way since then and has begun to operate in sophisticated manner.
A few years ago, Mexican officials realised that Sasmex was not living up to its potential and worked towards developing a better system. The problem with previous systems was that the various agencies and states had not organised around the technology and infrastructure they had.
The system’s sensors were picking up hundreds of earthquakes each year, but they were unable instantly to notify people of the impending danger. The authorities understood that if there’s a big earthquake, a warning needs to go out to everyone immediately, and that’s what the new and improved system has helped Mexico to accomplish over the past few years.
Sasmex has been made smarter and more configurable. It can now be adjusted to ignore earthquakes under a threshold. If an event is measured at less than magnitude 5, no one is notified. If an earthquake is detected between magnitude 5 and 6, only officials in the relevant states are notified and not the public.
There is also a level of customisation in the ability to notify only those regions that need to be alerted based on their distance from the epicentre. Once alerts are issued, tens of thousands of receivers in participating cities receive the signal.
Although South Africa has a lower risk for earthquakes, the recent incident should serve as a warning to better prepare for such an event. As Covid19 has shown, countries have been caught off guard for many risks that require citizens to be better informed ahead of time. This highlights the need for better communication systems that are accessible to provide an early warning not just for earthquakes but for any potential risks.
Such a warning and data system could cover various areas to avoid another failure of communication. There is no better time to develop a dashboard with data and artificial intelligence capability on various risks. It may just save lives when another earthquake hits South Africa.