Earthquake Alert For Smartphone Users

American scientists have developed a mobile phone app which can now save thousands of lives with its ability to sense and provide earthquake alerts to users.

The scientists who made this app are from the University of California at Berkeley and Deutsche Telekom AG, USA. The app, named as MyShake, runs on all types of smartphones. It records the time and tremor amplitude and sends the relevant data depending on the phone’s location.

The app is aimed at enabling the global seismic network that will immediately alert users beforehand about forthcoming shakes of the earth due to earthquakes. A Deutsche Telekom official said on Monday that, “For many earthquake-prone countries such as Nepal or Peru, MyShake could warn potentially affected persons valuable seconds earlier and, ideally, save lives.”  He added that, “These countries currently have either only a sparse ground-based seismic network or early warning system, or none at all — but does have millions of smartphone users.”

The phone’s motion sensor or accelerometer is less sensitive compared to an in-ground sensitometer and can record earthquakes above a magnitude of 5 to 10 kilometers.

Currently available in Google’s ‘Play Store’, it will soon become an iPhone app soon. At a time, when engineers are regularly coming out with more and more creative ideas for apps, MyShake surely stands out as it is aimed at something which speaks more than entertainment.