A private research organization in China developed an earthquake warning system. The new system has been installed in Beijing as well as its surrounding areas and testing is reportedly already underway.
The director of the Institute of Care-Life – which is a non-governmental organization that researches earthquakes – Wang Dun said, “The installation was carried out in schools, communities and township government buildings in cities after the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province”.
The technology was provided by the organization which is located in Sichuan’s provincial capital of Chengdu. Wang went on to say that if an earthquake hits any of the cities, other cities will also receive warnings from the system and this will happen within just seven seconds. The director also said that the system covers 130,000 square km in the Beijing and Tianjin municipalities, in addition to Hebei province and others nearby.
In recent times, North China has experienced violent seismic activities, such as an 8.2-magnitude earthquake in 1976, which killed over 242,000 people in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei and marked one of the deadliest calamities to date. The system provides warnings within seconds after an earthquake and it can save many lives in those quakes with a magnitude of 6.0 or even higher as warnings – which will be transmitted through radio waves – travel faster compared to seismic waves.
Photo Credits: eChinacities
