Project objectives

The quality of life and infrastructure security are vulnerable more and more to natural disasters caused by geologic (earthquakes, volcanoes etc.), atmospheric, hydrologic or technologic events. Also, the earthquakes are responsible for approximatively 30% of the total damage generated by natural and anthropogenic events. There is a big vulnerability of buildings from Bucharest and other cities, that was observed during the last catastrophic events from 1940 November 10 (Mw =7.4) and 1977 March 4 (Mw=7.2). During the 1977 earthquake were recorded 1578 deaths, 11300 injured people and 35000 houses destroyed. 480 people died from burns caused by gas fires, since after the earthquake the gas was still pumped in the gas pipes of towns. Providing warning notification several seconds before dangerous earthquake waves arrive at a target site mitigates the property damages and human casualties. The scope of DETACHED (Earthquake Early Warning System with DEcenTrAlized decision at eacH of the alErting noDes) project is to create a low-cost, robust and versatile tool for end users, with direct implication in society and critical infrastructure management, to mitigate the risks associated with hazardous phenomena and to reduce human loses. This scope will be reached following two specific objectives (A) To improve the EEWS performance, reliability, fault tolerance and flexibility and (B) To test the performance of the device node with real time and historical data. The actual project will highly improve the existing capacity, upgrading a device (developed previously by INFP) with new features that allows decentralized decisions. At the moment the existing capacities allow assessment of earthquake size just in a central point (INFP headquarter). Through this project the devices network will permit the early alert decisions in multiple points that will reduce the risks associated with lack of communications in central point and lose valuable warning time.