Warning systems are a way for people to have the time to prepare for a disaster before it strikes. Whether it gives the warning a minute or an hour in advance, either could be enough to save a life, the problem comes when the warning system doesn't do its job at all, which appears to be what happened with Android's.
Faulty Earthquake Warning System
Back on February 6th, Turkey was hit with a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake. In an investigation, it was found that Android owners were not given a notice from Google's earthquake warning system.
Hundreds of people were said to be questioned in three cities in Turkey, and it turns out that only a few got the alert, and it only arrived during the second tremor. The arrival of the warning would still be helpful the second time, but the first time would've been more crucial.
Google's product lead Micah Berman claims that millions of people in the affected country received the earthquake alerts, according to Engadget, although the company was not able to show data proving that was the case and resorted to other means.
Instead, Google showed social media posts from people who said that they received the warning. Even with that, only one user claimed that they received the alert during the first earthquake and the rest only received them the second time around.
Berman didn't have a "resounding answer," and reasoned that social media platforms may have been quiet about the alerts due to the system's contributing factors such as the nature of a quake, or the reliability of the users' internet access.
What's worrisome is that it wasn't able to detect a strong magnitude tremor, which means that it might not be able to detect weaker ones as well, which coils just be as dangerous. In its current state, other warning systems could be more reliable in states of emergencies.
How It Works
Google developed the warning system in collaboration with ShakeAlert, which uses a network of 1675 seismic sensors capable of detecting the shaking from tremors. The data it collects are analyzed which can determine the location and the size of an earthquake.
In other areas like Turkey, the system uses crowdsourcing through small accelerometers that can sense both vibration and speed. If the phone identifies the data as an earthquake, it will send a signal to Google's earthquake detection server.
All the collected data from over two billion Android phones serve as the world's "largest earthquake detection network," which Google claims will alert Android users in affected areas. Users can manually search for it by typing "Earthquake near me" on Google search.
According to the search giant, there are two types of alerts that can be sent out. One is the "Be Aware Alert" for weak or light shaking, and the other is the "Take Action Alert" for moderate or extreme shaking. Both cases will only appear if the tremor is of magnitude 4.5 or higher.
