Japan’s new earthquake alert system
June 14th, 2008 by Chris
This (not my photo; thanks, Flickr!) is what appeared on the TV screen several seconds before the earthquake arrived in Noshiro this morning. Note that the blue overlay is not part of the newscast, but pops up over whatever show is currently on. This particular warning is from an aftershock about half an hour after the main quake, so at this point everybody was already watching the news.
Seismic sensors are placed all over the country, and immediately upon the occurrence of the first shock, the epicenter is calculated and warnings go up on TV stations immediately. Since the shock waves take time to spread from the epicenter through the ground, the warning will hit the TV before the quake arrives in most places. Impressive stuff.
June 15th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Chris,
That’s fantastic. We should have a warning system like that in California, but I’m sure we don’t.
Michael
June 16th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Now that is pretty freakin’ cool! A country where geologists, government and the media work together to produce results like that is a whole other level of civilization as far as I’m concerned.