Early warning device might help reduce loss in quake (2)

In the Ya'an case, ICL's early warning reported the earthquake to be of 6.4 magnitude a few seconds after it happened. The official automatic quick report initially reported 5.9 magnitude two minutes after the earthquake, and manually adjusted to 7.0 nine minutes later.

"The system proved effective and achieved its goal," said Wang, "It is regrettable that we don't have a big group of subscribers." In addition to several thousand of handset subscribers, ICL's users includes client terminal owners, TV viewers and weibo message receivers. The total number is about 420,000 people. Statistics show the population of Chengdu surpassed 14 million at the end of 2010.

"We need to do a better job in product promotion and company management, " Wang told Xinhua Tuesday on the phone. We should raise public awareness of the effect and value of early earthquake warnings, he added.

ICL has a staff of about 50 people. Apart from three administrative workers, all others are technicians.

Jing Li said she came across the software at the iphone app store. She is a fourth-year college student in Shanxi Province. She moved to Chengdu for an internship as graphic designer. "I downloaded the app because I learned Sichuan was prone to earthquakes. It made me feel a little safer, " she said.

Jing Li missed her handset's warning that morning, because she had set the gadget to silent mode. But her apartment mate's handset screamed and on running she cried out at her. When Jing returned to her room on the fifth floor a few hours later, she found the pedant lamp had fallen from the ceiling, landed at where she might have stood, broken into pieces.

Since then, Jing has kept her handset audible. She has heard warnings for several aftershocks. People on Weibo have asked her about the software, and she told them where and how to get it.

"The warning is timely. And the software is easy to handle," said Niu Pengfei, who graduated from college hardly a year ago and works as an IT maintenance worker in Chengdu.

ICL gives warnings of earthquakes of considerable intensity, usually above 2.7 magnitude, which will cause a tremor a human can feel. A user of the ICL warning software can set the starting intensity at will. Niu and Jing both set the warning intensity at third-degree and above.

"It's convenient, very good, makes me feel safe," Jing Li said.

Successful as it is, there remains a question: how helpful is the early warning system to escaping a disaster? An evaluation is yet to be done. In the Ya'an case, 28 seconds would have sufficed for most residents to flee or find safe places to stay. But then, the impact of the earthquake greatly reduced when the quake waves reached the city.

It was the people in Ya'an who needed to be warned early most. The ICL warning was no more than five seconds in advance. It is clearly not adequate, even if all people there had subscribed to the service.

Unfortunately, this situation can not be expected to be altered greatly. "It is limited by the method. There's little we can do about it," Wang Tun said.

The role the early warning system can play in human preparation against earthquakes must be supportive. It is not a solution, but should be part of multi-faceted efforts, involving sectors such as housing, education, research, engineering and medical care, experts said.