The European Alert System (sometimes referred to as the European Alarm System or European Warning System) is an earthquake warning system for member states of the Council of Europe's EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement.
An earthquake warning system is a system of accelerometers, seismometers, communication, computers, and alarms that is devised for notifying adjoining regions of a substantial earthquake while it is in progress. This is not the same as earthquake prediction, which is currently incapable of producing decisive event warnings.
The Council of Europe is an international organisation whose stated aim is to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it has 47 member states, covers approximately 820 million people and operates with an annual budget of approximately 500 million euros.
The EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement is a Partial Agreement of the Council of Europe, set up in 1987 by Resolution (87) 2 of the Committee of Ministers. Its full name is "Co-operation Group for the Prevention of, Protection Against, and Organisation of Relief in Major Natural and Technological Disasters (EUR-OPA)".
Seismic alerts are provided by the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), [1] an international, non-governmental, and non-profit association based at the Laboratoire de Détection et de Géophysique (LDG) of the French Atomic Energy Commission (Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique - CEA) in Bruyères-le-Châtel (Essonne, France). Until 1993, the EMSC was based in Strasbourg. [2]
Bruyères-le-Châtel is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France.
Essonne is a French department in the region of Île-de-France. It is named after the Essonne River.
The EMSC's main area of competence is the following:
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is an endorheic basin located between Europe and Asia, to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the broad steppe of Central Asia. The sea has a surface area of 371,000 km2 and a volume of 78,200 km3. It has a salinity of approximately 1.2%, about a third of the salinity of most seawater. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the west, Iran to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southeast. The Caspian Sea is home to a wide range of species and may be best known for its caviar and oil industries. Pollution from the oil industry and dams on rivers draining into the Caspian Sea have had negative effects on the organisms living in the sea.
The Black Sea is a body of water and marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean between the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Western Asia. It is supplied by a number of major rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Southern Bug, Dniester, Don, and the Rioni. Areas of many countries drain into the Black Sea, including Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine.
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa and on the east by the Levant. Although the sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is usually identified as a separate body of water. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years, the Messinian salinity crisis, before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago.
The competent region also includes, as far as possible, territories of member states of the EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement which fall outside these boundaries.
The EMSC's Coordination Bureau is responsible for informing the Secretariat of the EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement about any major event in the European-Mediterranean region. It disseminates a notification to the Council of Europe less than an hour after an earthquake occurrence with a magnitude larger than 6.0 on the Richter scale in any of the states of the Partial Agreement, indicating the localization of the epicentre of the seism and its magnitude. The EUR-OPA secretariat undertakes to confirm the data with the affected state(s) and ask for their needs, which if necessary are communicated to other member states.
The Council of Europe does not provide humanitarian aid itself. This is provided by organisations such as the European Commission and UNOCHA.
Humanitarian aid is material and logistic assistance to people who need help. It is usually short-term help until the long-term help by government and other institutions replaces it. Among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars and famines. Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian relief efforts including natural disasters and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity. It may therefore be distinguished from development aid, which seeks to address the underlying socioeconomic factors which may have led to a crisis or emergency. There is a debate on linking humanitarian aid and development efforts, which was reinforced by the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016. However, the approach is viewed critically by practitioners.
The European Commission (EC) is the executive branch of the European Union, responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the EU treaties and managing the day-to-day business of the EU. Commissioners swear an oath at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg City, pledging to respect the treaties and to be completely independent in carrying out their duties during their mandate. Unlike in the Council of the European Union, where members are directly and indirectly elected, and the European Parliament, where members are directly elected, the Commissioners are proposed by the Council of the European Union, on the basis of suggestions made by the national governments, and then appointed by the European Council after the approval of the European Parliament.
The alert was triggered for 19 events in 2006, notably the Mw 6.7 in Greece on 8 January 2006 and 18 events in the Extreme-Eastern Russia (10 events in the Kuril Islands, 5 in the Koryakia region (North of Kamchatka Peninsula) and 3 in or near the Kamchatka Peninsula).
The following is a list of earthquake lists, and of top earthquakes by magnitude and fatalities.
The 1957 Andreanof Islands earthquake took place on March 9 with a moment magnitude of 8.6 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). It occurred south of the Andreanof Islands group, which is part of the Aleutian Islands arc. The event occurred along the Aleutian Trench, the convergent plate boundary that separates the Pacific Plate and the North American Plates near Alaska. A basin wide tsunami followed, with effects felt in Alaska and Hawaii. Total losses were around $5 million.
The 1976 Moro Gulf earthquake and tsunami took place on August 17 at 00:11 local time near the islands of Mindanao and Sulu, in the Philippines. Its magnitude was calculated as being as high as 8.0 on the moment magnitude scale.
The 2008 Dodecanese earthquake occurred near Kattavia on the island of Rhodes in the eastern Mediterranean Sea on 15 July. The quake struck at 06:26 a.m. local time (UTC+3) and one woman was killed when she slipped and fell as she tried to flee her home. However, the earthquake did not cause any major damage. The earthquake was felt across the entire eastern Mediterranean, as far west as Libya, and inland as far as Damascus.
The volcanoes of Kamchatka are a large group of volcanoes situated on the Kamchatka Peninsula, in eastern Russia. The Kamchatka River and the surrounding central side valley are flanked by large volcanic belts containing around 160 volcanoes, 29 of them still active. The peninsula has a high density of volcanoes and associated volcanic phenomena, with 29 active volcanoes being included in the six UNESCO World Heritage List sites in the Volcanoes of Kamchatka group, most of them on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The Swiss Seismological Service at ETH Zurich is the federal agency responsible for monitoring earthquakes in Switzerland and its neighboring countries and for assessing Switzerland's seismic hazard. When an earthquake happens, the SED informs the public, authorities, and the media about the earthquake's location, magnitude, and possible consequences. The activities of the SED are integrated in the federal action plan for earthquake precaution.
The Brawley Seismic Zone (BSZ), also known as the Brawley fault zone, is a predominantly extensional tectonic zone that connects the southern terminus of the San Andreas Fault with the Imperial Fault in Southern California. The BSZ is named for the nearby town of Brawley in Imperial County, California, and the seismicity there is characterized by earthquake swarms.
The 1995 Gulf of Aqaba earthquake occurred on November 22 at 06:15 local time and registered 7.3 on the Mw scale. The epicenter was located in the central segment of the Gulf of Aqaba, the narrow body of water that separates Egypt's Sinai Peninsula from the western border of Saudi Arabia. At least 8 people were killed and 30 were injured in the meizoseismal area.
The National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) forms part of an international tsunami warning system (TWS). It serves as the operations center for all coastal regions of Canada and the United States, except Hawaii, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico. Headquartered in Palmer, Alaska, it is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The 1959 Kamchatka earthquake occurred on May 4 at 19:15 local time with a moment magnitude of 8.0, and a surface wave magnitude of 8.2. The epicenter was near the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russian SFSR, USSR. Building damage was reported in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The maximum intensity was VIII (Damaging) on the Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale. The intensity in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky was about VIII MSK.
The 2014 Guerrero earthquake occurred with a moment magnitude of 7.2 that hit the state of Guerrero, close to Acapulco, Mexico, on 18 April at 14:27:26. The epicenter occurred 265 kilometers southwest of Mexico City and at a depth of 24 kilometers. Thrust motion at shallow depths is what caused the earthquake. This was broadly consistent with a slip on or near the Guerrero Seismic Gap, a boundary between the Cocos and North American plates along the Pacific Coast approximately 200 kilometers long. The shaking was felt in states as far away as Puebla and Tlaxcala.
The National Centre for Seismology (NCS) is an office of India's Ministry of Earth Sciences. The office monitors earthquakes and conducts seismological research. Specifically, it provides earthquake surveillance and hazard reports to governmental agencies. It consists of various divisions:
The Valparaíso earthquake of April 2017 was a strong earthquake that shook the cities of Valparaíso and Santiago on Monday, April 24, 2017 at 18:38 local time and 21:38 UTC. Its epicenter was located off the coast of the Valparaíso Region and had a magnitude of 6.9 Mw. On the scale of Mercalli, the earthquake reached an intensity VII.