Warning Before An Earthquake? There’s A Mobile App For That

Do you know how your mobile phone can save you from the danger of an earthquake?

Scientists UC Berkeley's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences have worked together in creating a mobile application that crowdsources information related to earthquake. This application has a role to play to warn other about expected movements and shakes.

The new app called MyShake requires minimal power and can even run in the background. This was intended by the developers so the app can record any kind of sharing anytime of the day.

Richard Allen, the leader of the team who developed the app, already presented the app along with ShakeAlert, an early warning system for the West Coast of the United States. The presentation coincided with the annual meeting of the Japan Geoscience Union that was held also with the American Geophysical Union in Chiba, Japan.

It was initially released in February, and since then it recorded at least 170,000 individual downloads from different parts of the world. It was also recorded that around 11,000 phone have been providing data to the system.

During the past months, the network, through this mobile app, already recorded shakes in Mexico, Argentina, Nepal, Chile, Morocco, Taiwan, New Zealand, Japan, and some areas in North America. Interestingly, it also recorded the induced earthquakes in Oklahoma. The movements recorded range from magnitude 2.5 to 7.8.

The developers at UC Berkeley are hoping that more people would download and use the mobile app to provide more comprehensive pooling of information. Bugs also had to be worked out, the developers added. UC Berkeley-based seismologists have plans to "use the data to warn people miles from ground zero that sharing is rumbling their way," according to a post in the project's web page.

For those who prefer other languages, the app will soon be available in Spanish and Chinese to reach more people around the globe.  

More details about the mobile app complete with Japanese subtitles can be accessed in this link.