ZJU alumnus develops EEWS sending alert 61 sec before the arrival of shaking waves

On Jun 13, Earthquake Early Warning System (EEWS)，developed by WANG Tun (BEng’95, Zhejiang University) sends a warning signal to the public in the city of Chengdu 61 seconds before Changning earthquake hits the area.

This EEWS has realized the simultaneous real-time release of early warning information through smartphones, radio and television, microblogs, earthquake warning information receiving servers, which also makes China the third country after Mexico and Japan to have the technical capability of earthquake warning.

A returned entrepreneur from overseas, WANG now is the director of Institute of Care-life. Back in 2008, he was conducting a postdoc research in Austria Academy of Sciences when a magnitude 7.9 earthquake claimed around 80,000 lives in Wenchuan, Sichuan province. The catastrophy triggered his return to China and the development of EEWS. He hopes the seconds to tens of seconds of advance warning will protect life and property from destructive shaking.

Since its launch in 2011, EEWS has issued accurate warning information before a series of earthquakes, such as the Jiuzhaigou earthquake in 2017. "When an earthquake occurs, vertical and horizontal waves are generated. As the vertical wave travels faster than the horizontal wave, the seismic monitoring system will certainly be the first to detect the vertical wave.” said WANG. "The 24-hour manual watching system is improving, but it is also fully automatic with high-intelligence. Even if there is no special person on duty, early warning information is still sent out at the highest speed."