A system that warns of earthquakes is expected to start operating in Israel as early as February: "Save lives"

Walla!

It was learned that in the background of the earthquakes that shook Israel this week, the interface between the Geological Survey and the Home Front Command has been completed and the advanced system will be officially launched as early as next week.

But one small problem remains - the public does not know and does not know what it is supposed to do when an alarm sounds, so an extensive information campaign will be required.

Yoav Itiel

25/01/2022

Tuesday, 25 January 2022, 08:00 Updated: Friday, 28 January 2022, 20:53

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In the video: A new system came into use at the Geological Survey (Photo: Yoav Itiel)

Following the earthquakes that shook Israel this week, the Home Front Command is accelerating its entry into the operational service of an advanced earthquake warning system.

This system will give a warning of a few seconds before an earthquake and will allow citizens in the risk area to go out into the open.

This, through the national horn alert system that includes thousands of horns all over the country.

The expectation is that within a few weeks, during the month of February, it will start operating.

This is a groundbreaking moment for the Geological Survey, where work began on the project about a decade ago.

It implements the 2012 "Tremor / 20" government decision to establish short-term earthquake and tsunami warning systems.

The system was developed in California, and has been improved and adapted to Israel in collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley and the Israel Geological Survey.

The tender for the installation of a national earthquake warning system was issued more than five years ago.

The cost of the system is estimated at NIS 40 million.

The "Trua" system, as it is called in the government decision, was developed under the leadership of the National Emergency Authority (RAHL) in the Ministry of Defense and the Geological Survey and includes 120 detectors, "sensors", seismic buried 6-5 kilometers apart along the 420 kilometers of the Syrian rift African in the Jordan Valley, on the Egyptian border, in the Yagur fault and in other places in the country.The locations of the detectors were determined on the basis of a mapping of the seismological division of the Israel Geological Institute.

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The "cheering" system is expected to start operating in February.

Burying in a tundra with the sensor for monitoring earthquakes (Photo: Official website, Motorola Solutions)

In the international tender, Nanometrics from Canada, which specializes in setting up seismic networks, won, and worked with Motorola Solutions from Israel as a projector, to include all the detectors. These know how to receive the signal before an earthquake occurs, and transmit it to the Home Front Command's horn system. In an accelerated process led by PKAR, sound files were assimilated into horns and they would update the population on an earthquake a few seconds before it occurred.

The system allows the Geological Survey's warning algorithm, developed in California and adapted to Israel by Geological Survey researchers, to perform rapid locating and evaluation.

In this capacity, Israel joins the most advanced countries in the world, such as Japan and the state of California in the United States, which provide life-saving alerts to their residents.

The defense system emphasizes in particular the "low-tech", less-technological part of the "cheer" system - it will alert not only via mobile phones, but also from the horns scattered on the roofs of schools, community centers and other public buildings, as well as dedicated masts in all Across the country.

Cheers system sensors (Photo: Official Website, Motorola Solutions)

The goal is for people to receive the alert before they feel an earthquake, but in practice people may receive an alert before, during or after the earthquake reaches their location.

The duration of the warning depends on several factors, and they are: how close the seismic sensors are to each other, how fast the data travels through the system, how strong the earthquake is, how deep underground it was, and whether it passed through sand, earth or rocky layer.

The warning system is based on innovative technology that will continue to improve over time.

Israel's seismic network continuously monitors many earthquakes that occur all the time, but warnings are given only beyond the threshold set when planning the system.

In order to balance the need to warn as quickly as possible with the desire to be precise in the warning and prevent warnings in areas where the quake will not be felt, it was determined that when the initial detection indicates an earthquake of 4.2-6 degrees, a warning will only be sent to areas where the quake will be felt.

In contrast, for strong quakes of magnitude 6, an alert will be sent throughout the country.

Cheers system sensors (Photo: Official Website, Motorola Solutions)

"This is definitely in line, because on the day of a major earthquake, this system has the potential to save lives and we are absolutely at the forefront of countries around the world with such technology," says Dr. Itai Korzon of the Geological Survey, who was one of the project's delegates. "We insisted on high station density, high communication speeds, and redundancies, including two communication channels and two control rooms - in Jerusalem and Lod," he explained

. Filter background noise and irrelevant events, such as rock blasts - to prevent false alarms as much as possible. , In rare circumstances, a false alarm may be received when there has not actually been an earthquake.

The same detector is buried in the ground (Photo: Yoav Itiel)

The system is connected to the national alert system "National Message", which warns of missiles and is connected to the cellular network.

Through this connection, the system is able to simultaneously send a message to many citizens, who are staying in the coverage area of ​​a particular base station.

Engineer Haim Shulman explains that complex projects of this type do not exist in many countries.

In order to implement the project, it was necessary to meet a huge technological challenge of integration between many information systems - satellite communications, cellular communications, data centers that back up the systems, control rooms and more.

How It Works?

Scientists have discovered that in an earthquake the erupting fracture sends out two different types of waves. A wave known as a "P" moving fast is the first to arrive, but the damage is caused by the slower "S" waves and surface waves. The warning system is based on sensors that detect the "P" wave earlier, and immediately transmit data to the earthquake warning center, which determines the location and magnitude of the earthquake, which are updated as more data is received. The alert-targeted message is immediately forwarded to users.

"When an earthquake occurs, within a few seconds an initial identification of the location of the earthquake and its intensity is obtained - its rank is based on data from the first earthquake wave which spreads relatively quickly. "Which spreads relatively slowly but has great damage. The warning time varies from event to event and from city to city," explain Dr. Itai Korzon and D.Ran Nof, who was a representative of the Geological Survey of Israel alongside the team at Berkeley.

Imaging sensors of the "Trua" system (Photo: Official website, State of California and the Geological Survey of Israel)

The national system is less effective as you approach the epicenter of the earthquake.

"When an earthquake occurs in the northern Dead Sea, the warning for Jerusalem residents will be about 3 seconds, for Tel Aviv residents about 18 seconds, and for Haifa residents about 30 seconds. However, if an earthquake occurs in the Beit She'an Valley, the warning time for Jerusalem will be 20 seconds "19 seconds and Haifa 12 seconds. During this time, citizens will be able to leave their homes or run to protected areas."

The warning is not a "prediction" of an earthquake.

Prof. Gvirtzman (Photo: Yoav Itiel)

Experts stress that an early earthquake warning is not an "earthquake prediction", meaning that the warning cannot arrive before the earthquake begins.

"We are not predicting anything and this is not a forecast, when the system gives the warning the tremor has already happened," says Walla!

The director of the Geological Survey, Prof. Zohar Gvirtzman, "We only take advantage of the short period of time after it has happened and before it has affected population concentrations."

Prof. Gvirtsman also wants to emphasize what should be taken for granted, that earthquakes cannot be prevented and that the warning system does not prevent the collapse of buildings.

This system is part of Israel's system of dealing with earthquakes and does not replace the need for proper construction according to a standard for earthquake resistance to buildings, nor the need to strengthen old buildings.

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