An early warning system for deep Vrancea (Romania) earthquakes

Abstract

Nowadays natural disasters phenomena as hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis or earthquakes, are still difficult to prevent. Based on signaling of the phenomenon appearance in the destructive area, important human losses and material damages are avoided. For that reason, WARNING turns into a key objective, both in theoretical and practical research. For the earthquakes, warning intervals are nevertheless very short -seconds to maximum one minute (Mexico City case). Even if the time window is reduced, automated decision measures are possible in case of a well organized system like important facilities. In Romania, the major seismic risk zone is located in Vrancea region. The earthquakes occurring in this area are the main sources for the seismic hazard on Romanian territory. Seismotectonic characteristics of the Vrancea region offers the opportunity to create and develop a rapid seismic warning system. This system is simple, reasonably low-priced, robust and allows warning in an approximately 25 seconds time window for Bucharest. Warning signal obtained is sent to the responsible factors and specific users in order to control automated blocking of the installations and to carry out the required protection actions. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.