By Liu Jiayi, ZDNet
A recent quake jolted Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, where over 14 million people live, and also Deyang and its surrounding areas–all of which were severely damaged during the 2008 quake. The Chengdu Institute of Care-life, a local earthquake research and warning organization, managed to send two warning messages to its Weibo site, the Chinese version of Twitter. According to the institute’s director Wang Tun, the warning system automatically goes online and sends messages as soon as five seconds after any of its 200 detectors–covering an area of over 20,000 square kilometres–pick up a shockwave. At present, with less than 1,000 online followers and a little over 100 tweets, the warning system only covers the metropolitan area of Chengdu. But Wang still believes even a few seconds of “heads up” will make a huge difference in case of a devastating quake.
http://www.zdnet.com/cn/china-reduces-casualties-with-quake-warnings-via-social-media-7000009415/
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