Abstract
This study presents the latest developments of an approach called ‘flash sourcing’, which provides information on the effects of an earthquake within minutes of its occurrence. Information is derived from an analysis of the website traffic surges of the European–Mediterranean Seismological Centre website after felt earthquakes. These surges are caused by eyewitnesses to a felt earthquake, who are the first who are informed of, and hence the first concerned by, an earthquake occurrence. Flash sourcing maps the felt area, and at least in some circumstances, the regions affected by severe damage or network disruption. We illustrate how the flash-sourced information improves and speeds up the delivery of public earthquake information, and beyond seismology, we consider what it can teach us about public responses when experiencing an earthquake. Future developments should improve the description of the earthquake effects and potentially contribute to the improvement of the efficiency of earthquake responses by filling the information gap after the occurrence of an earthquake.
Highlights
Rapid characterization of earthquake effects is essential for timely and appropriate responses to aid victims
We have not been able to find evidence to confirm this possibility, the absence of collected questionnaires might be due to the low number of respondents; Bossu et al [2011] showed from tests on several earthquakes that on average, less than 1% of the eyewitnesses visiting the European–Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) website complete the online questionnaire
Flash sourcing can currently map the area where an earthquake has been felt in less than 5 min. It can exclude the possibility of widespread damage, and in certain cases it can detect and map regions affected by network failures in near real time
Summary
Rapid characterization of earthquake effects is essential for timely and appropriate responses to aid victims. The use by these eyewitnesses of the European–Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) earthquake information website (www.emsccsem.org) is analyzed in real time to map the area where an earthquake is felt, and to identify, at least under certain circumstances, the zones of widespread damage. This approach is based on the natural and immediate responses of eyewitnesses, who rush to the Internet to investigate the cause of shaking that they have just felt, converging on the EMSC website and increasing the website traffic [Bossu et al 2007]. The validity of the information derived from this website traffic analysis is confirmed by comparisons with macroseismic maps of the European Macroseismic Scale EMS98 [Grünthal 1998] obtained from online questionnaires [Bossu et al 2011]
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