Real time earthquake alerts on your smartphone are possible thanks to Earthquake Network. Started in 2012, Earthquake Network is a citizen science initiative implementing a crowdsourced Earthquake Early Warning system based on networks of smartphones. More than 20 million people took part in the initiative and the system has sent more than 7,600 real time earthquake alerts. In many seismic countries, Earthquake Network is currently the only alert system open to the public.
Since 2019, thanks to the participation of the University of Bergamo in the TURNkey and RISE projects funded by the European Commission, data provided by Earthquake Network are studied to develop new seismic risk mitigation systems for Europe. To be part of the network and to receive alerts download the Earthquake Network app.
The idea is to use the accelerometer on-board smartphones to detect in real-time the shaking induced by an earthquake. When an earthquake is detected, an alert is sent to all the smartphones within the affected area. If you are not too close to the epicenter, you can receive the alert in advance and you can take cover before you are reached by the damaging waves of the earthquake.