Abstract
The Mbeya city and its surrounding regions (Rukwa, Katavi and Njombe) in south western Tanzania, fall among the fast growing economical regions in Tanzania. It is also unfortunately under potential for seismic risk due to its proximity to the western and eastern junction of the East African Rift (EAR) Valley. Construction of Community Earthquake Early Warning (CEEW) system model based on community owned MEMS accelerometer sensors in being proposed for the region. To optimize the warning time function and as the process of planning and designing the community hosted seismic network, the paper presents the simulation of warning times that can be realized in this region based on the distribution of sensor stations in relation to the historical strong earthquakes and target sites. The distribution of sensor stations determines the detection and reporting time of the event, while location of earthquakes and position of target site determine the available warning time for the target to be protected. Testing the various sensor station configura- tions (regional, On-site and Hybrid) models of CEEWS by simulation of scenario earthquakes, the hybrid configuration that distributes sensor stations closer to the source and on target sites, was able to provide at least 5 seconds of warning times to various targets. This time has been demon- strated to be enough for shutting down hazardous industrial processes and for people to take cover at safer locations to reduce injuries.
Highlights
In the past few years, research and development of earthquake early warning (EEW) have shown significant potential for the mitigation of earthquake disasters [1]-[4]
To accomplish the objective of the research, examining the warning time that can be realized at target sites for various scenario earthquakes, while adopting different sensor station configurations, an algorithm for simulating the earthquake travel times across the region was developed for the study
Each simulation process simulated an individual scenario event recorded in the south-western Tanzania (SWTZ) zone at a time through three steps that starts with significant detection of P-waves peak ground acceleration (PGA) at one station, estimation of distances between station and targets/other stations, predicting the expected S-waves PGA and arrival times at other stations in the network, and the checking of the alarm decision criteria for CEEWS
Summary
In the past few years, research and development of earthquake early warning (EEW) have shown significant potential for the mitigation of earthquake disasters [1]-[4]. To guarantee some earthquake warning times for the target sites, distribution of sensor stations relative to the locations of historical strong earthquakes in the region, is being evaluated through simulation. The SWTZ region is seismically active due to its proximity to the western and eastern junction of the East African Rift (EAR) Valley [5]-[8]. This fact is demonstrated by the occurrences of several earthquakes with varying magnitudes as detailed in Figure 1 that maps the earthquake recorded in the region between 1973 and May 2012.
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