Tag Archive for ‘Early Warning’

Is 7 seconds long enough to react to an earthquake?

If you had only a few seconds to prepare for an earthquake, what would you do? Following Japan, Mexico and India, the US Geological Survey has recently announced its plan to implement an $80million earthquake early warning system for California. The system is designed to detect earthquake signals seconds or even minutes before the earthquake hits, with the aim of mitigating any damage before it occurs. But is a few seconds really enough time to diminish the effects of an earthquake, and can we justify the costs of such a system?