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Impact Assessment of Eew Systems in Central America

Description: 

Since 2016, the ATTAC (Alerta Temprana de Terremotos en América Central) project has been developing national Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems across Central America, through collaboration between the Swiss Seismological Service at ETH Zurich and national seismic agencies in Nicaragua (INETER), Costa Rica (OVSICORI), Guatemala (INSIVUMEH) and El Salvador (MARN). The four countries now provide public alerts through mobile applications. As the national EEW systems have moved into an operational status, the selection of recommended protective actions that can reduce casualties becomes crucial. The essential premise of EEW is that seconds matter. Therefore, a well-educated public that responds promptly and adequately is indispensable to a successful outcome. However, no official ‘written’ guidance on recommended protective actions exists in any country in Central America.

We used a recently proposed framework (Papadopoulos et al., 2023) to combine the regional seismic risk model (Global Earthquake Model, Silva et al., 2018), EEW warning times depending on the spatial distribution of the seismic network, and the behavior of individuals during earthquakes (Orihuela et al., 2023) to quantify the impact of EEW systems on reducing earthquake-induced casualties. On average, when considering major earthquakes, the implementation of EEW systems has demonstrated the potential to reduce casualties (i.e, injuries and fatalities) within the range of 14-18%. This percentage can be substantially improved through the implementation of key factors: (1) protective actions tailored to the building characteristics; 70% of the region's buildings are single-story structures, immediate evacuation should be prioritized while occupants in multi-story structures might be better advised to drop cover and hold on (DCHO); (2) improving the public response, educational programs and earthquake drills can influence individuals to react promptly; (3) increasing the warning time by densification and expansion of the seismic network and improving EEW methods.

Session: End-to-End Advancements in Earthquake Early Warning Systems - II

Type: Oral

Date: 5/3/2024

Presentation Time: 05:15 PM (local time)

Presenting Author: Benazir

Student Presenter: Yes

Invited Presentation: 

Authors