Slashdot Mirror
An Early Warning System For Earthquakes
Iphtashu Fitz writes "Would 15 seconds be enough warning time to prepare for an earthquake? It certainly wouldn't be long enough to evacuate from where you live, but it may be just long enough to get out of a building or brace yourself in a doorframe or under a solid desk. Italian scientists may have discovered a way to measure the initial shockwave of an earthquake two seconds after it starts, and from it predict the extent of the destructive secondary wave that will follow. It typically takes twenty seconds for the secondary wave to spread 40 miles, so sensors that can transmit warnings at the speed of light may provide just enough warning before a major quake for people to brace themselves. Even more importantly, such a warning could allow for utilities like gas companies to close safety valves, preventing potential fires or explosions in the aftermath of the quake."
"1985, Mexico City, buildings collapsed when the center of the earthquake was 400 km away. That one was unusual but it shows what's possible."
No, it shows what Mexican building codes are like.
Ah but which building designs would fare better in a hurricane or tornado? Flooding? We have more than just earthquakes for natural disasters...
Of course more time would be better. However, nearly everything important can be done in 15 seconds. The really critical things. Like getting the generators at the hospital up to keep the ICU running. Closing gas mains. Taking the scapel out of the guys brain during surgery.
You can't drive home from the grocery store and strap yourself into bed in 15 seconds, but you can do a lot of really really important things in that time.
Gosh, I did a seventh grade research paper ages ago on predicting earthquakes. I did mention radon... However, the conclusion of my paper was that earthquakes really couldn't be reliably predicted, so I suppose that some source I had said that you really couldn't effectively use radon as a good predictor, but I can't remember why exactly.
Some speculation: Perhaps false positives were an issue. After all, shutting a city down for an earthquake is an expensive proposition (just in lost time if nothing else), and if it turns out that the false positive rate is high, the cost would make it intractable. Also, I think an even bigger issue would be the very fact that it could be "months, days, minutes" before the quake. Radon might predict that a quake was likely soon, but is it going to be in 10 minutes, or is it going to be in two months? You certainly couldn't keep everyone on earthquake shutdown for two months.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.