EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

Abstract

Disaster management and emergency response to natural disasters like earthquakes is a grave issue with lives depending on the readiness of response and the level of preparedness. Here we present a new approach for preparedness against earthquakes, the highest death causing natural disaster in Pakistan. The Earthquake Early Warning System (EEWS) is a system of distributed live ground motion sensors at large distances around Islamabad, sending live data to a control server. That uses the live ground motion data and Geographical Information System (GIS) distance and overlay analysis tools to intercept the threat before it reaches Islamabad and notify to give a fair warning of tens of seconds to minutes depending on many factors. The Earthquake Early Warning System (EEWS), this approach uses modern Internet of Things (IoT) and GIS technologies to detect, assess and assist response to an earthquake in real-time, while the earthquake is propagating from its origin towards the EEWS protected location. EEWS consists of a network of ground sensors located around the earthquake protected location, measuring ground motion and sending live motion data to a computer server from the field at all times. The data on the servers is sorted w.r.t time and continuously monitored on the EEWS Web interface, represented by live graphs and maps. During a potentially destructive earthquake, the sensors detect the first reaching but least destructive P-Waves using highly sensitive motion sensors. Assessing the nature of the data and combining the data from other nearby sensors the system issues an alert to the protected location, which is received by the EEWS Alarm trigger box installed in EEWS subscribed buildings to enable evacuation protocols. The warning time window of the EEWS can range from tens of seconds to a few minutes. By feeding data gathered by the sensors and iterative learning of the system. EEWS will evolve into a sophisticated system that accurately assesses potential earthquakes at initial stage every time and builds a network of ground sensors connected to an automated system, to provide early warning to every location in the country. In the scope of this project we aimed to develop a tangible prototype for the Ground Sensor Station (GSS) and the EEWS Alarm Trigger Box (EA TB). Along with the EEWS server to receive live data over internet and process the ground sensor data and provide warning to the EA TB in fraction of a second. The aim has been completed and the targeted components are successfully designed and built, the GSS sends live data to the EEWS server and using dummy data for ground motion at different GSS locations, the server generates warning which is distributed to the EATB where the alarm is based on 3 levels of threats, none, low and high. The whole process takes less than a second.