Earthquakes are one of the worst natural disasters that can bring an entire nation back to its knees. Every time an earthquake happens, there is a huge loss of the country’s infrastructure and most importantly human lives. While humans are not in control of natural power, they certainly can avoid or reduce the impact whenever disaster strikes.
Building a public infrastructure to detect and alert everyone about an earthquake is constantly to build and deploy. Since this feature will be directly available to Android users it will increase the alert reach. In the event of any earthquake, tiny accelerometers equipped with smartphones can sense signals. It will then send a signal to Google earthquake detection servers along with the approx location of where the shaking occurred. The server will then combine information from many phones to figure out if an earthquake is happening.
“We’re essentially racing the speed of light (which is roughly the speed at which signals from a phone travel) against the speed of an earthquake. And lucky for us, the speed of light is much faster!” – Google
A few seconds of warning can make a difference in giving you time to drop, cover, and hold on before the shaking arrives.
Android users can also search ‘earthquake’ or ‘earthquake near me’ which will deliver results of the impacted area alongwith helpful resources on what to do after an earthquake.
Currently the service is available in California, US and Google has planned to bring this feature to more US states and other countries in near future.
