Warning Devices for earthquakes

Reduce the risk generated by earthquakes

Italy is a country, as you know, with fairly high seismic risk and the history of successive catastrophic events in recent years constantly reminds us how, in the prevention of disasters related to earthquakes, you have to put in place a series of measures involving construction standards, procedures, civil protection and a general education in risk management that should start right from the schools, as it happens since many years in Japan.

Despite much has been done from the point of view of prevention, just think that the Civil Defence as an organized structure has been substantially built and improved over time with a succession of major natural disasters, and also from that of the control of the territory and updating earthquake standards, with constant monitoring of changes in seismic zones, each new unexpected event to discover new social and regional problems.

The main problem, unfortunately, in Italy it is also linked to the fact that a good portion of the existing building is older than the mid-70s, and then, basically, built without any obligation to comply with the very first earthquake standards, that were born in those years.

Warning systems for earthquakes

From all points of view, the activities of prevention of damage caused by severe seismic events are important and necessary, primarily to avoid the tragedy of loss of life, which is the first goal, and also to minimize the damage to buildings and infrastructures, which are the backbone of urban systems.

With regard to the latter issue then, prevention activities have also a necessary and important economic impact, because the damage caused by an earthquake to which you are not prepared are often huge and require, then, a large investment of public money to restore the living conditions before the catastrophic event.

A long and careful reflection on these issues, combined with assessments of entrepreneurial and productive kind, have recently led to the launch of a new electronic device, for the common people and not confined to state agencies appointed to prevention, which should provide a further aid to reduce damage and casualties during earthquakes: Guardian SismAlarm, this is how it was called, is a product made entirely in Italy, designed to detect the primary seismic waves that anticipate, then, the arrival of destructive shocks of earthquakes.

The personal experience of the founder of the Guardian, technological platform spun out of I.Co, which has lived on his skin the effect of the earthquake of 2012 in Emilia Romagna, led Maurizio Taormina, this is his name, tu push its researchers to design a homemade solution of technological systems that his company has long realized for large structures.

The operation of Guardian SismAlarm starts from an important assumption: it is not possible to predict with scientific accuracy the place, time and intensity of an earthquake, but when certain seismic events are about to occur, especially those that are particularly powerful and destructive, occur the release of primary seismic waves, a short time from the most powerful and destructive ones, which, if received, can give a short period of time, but enough to reach a safe place and be protected.

The device, therefore, works thanks to some internal sensors tuned to detect seismic waves of minimum value of 3.0 to 3.2 on the Richter scale, and once measured these primary waves, warns the occupants of the premises in which it is installed by the emission of audible and visual signals proportional to the intensity of the waves received.
Powered by a 9V battery, so independent from the electrical system of the buildings in which it is installed, in addition to the recognition and reporting of primary waves coming in, is able to recognize and report, even the possible modification of the structural stability of building a post-event, thanks to the analysis of the movements of the reference system with respect to the vertical.

Other interesting detection device and alarm system for earthquakes is the one produced by the Sos Life NV and distributed by LAMIT, called Sos Life, this one also, cleverly, with battery power supply, which is characterized to be ordered with different sensitivities depending of the seismic zones where are located the buildings in which the equipment will be installed, and this is because less seismically hazardous areas, or modern buildings constructed with antiseismic criteria, require alarms with different settings than in areas of high seismic risk or to buildings structurally old and unsafe.

Sos Life as well, was designed and built to detect the primary waves at high speed that anticipate the arrival of the more destructive seismic waves, in case of detection, by the sensors, of P-waves above the set threshold, it reacts by emitting a signal audible alarm, accompanied by a colored visual signal, with a strong sound emission, equal to 85 dB, which can not, therefore, be ignored. The device, which can be mounted on the wall easily, can warn of the arrival of an earthquake with range variables of time depending on the intensity of the P-waves emitted and, therefore, of the earthquake on arrival, allowing rapid evacuation of the places.