When the national earthquake early warning system goes live

Canada’s national earthquake early warning system is expected to go live in British Columbia in April followed by Ontario and Quebec this fall, a program manager for the federal government told delegates at CatIQ Connect Wednesday.

The system works by detecting earthquake P waves — which move rapidly through the earth without causing much damage — to determine where and when an earthquake of significance may strike. Warnings are then distributed to critical infrastructure operators and the public via radio, TV and cellphones through the national public alerting system already in place for Amber Alerts and severe weather.

This warning allows protective actions to be taken that can reduce costs and prevent injuries and deaths, said Henry Seywerd, program manager for early earthquake warning with Natural Resources Canada.

“Earthquake early warning has the potential for reducing cash losses to your industry,” Seywerd said during the Earthquake: Raising our EQ IQ session. “The idea is that we want to cover areas with moderate to high earthquake risk.”

Public alerts will be distributed for earthquake events that have at least a magnitude of five and affect an area with an intensity shaking of four or greater within some particular areas, Seywerd said.

The system involves more than 400 sensors in B.C., eastern Ontario and southern Quebec, some in extremely remote locations. Captured data is transmitted back to two data centres through super modems and satellite communication. “The critical thing is to avoid downtime should one of those data centres become non-operational…” Seywerd said, adding that there is cross-border interoperability with American counterparts.

Early warnings are distributed from the data centres to the public and subscribed technical partners. “We send those alerts out at a lower level of shaking with the expectation that the facility owner has an understanding of what types of actions they may wish to take, depending on the sensitivity of their equipment,” Seywerd said.

Use cases

Some potential use cases for technical partners include:

• Automated stopping or slowing of trains, particularly for urban transport
• Alerts to hospitals so that doctors can stop surgeries
• Opening doors on fire halls. “Even a moderate amount of shaking can jam a door,” Seywerd said. “Your fire trucks do no good if they can’t get out of their building.”
• Diverting aircraft from landing on a moving runway
• Stopping elevators, as well as traffic on bridges and in tunnels
• Closing valves and securing cranes and other heavy industrial equipment
• Preparing generators for use so there’s continuous power.

“The earthquake early warning system will provide seconds to tens of seconds of warning prior to a major earthquake, which could reduce the impact of these earthquakes to Canadians,” Seywerd said.

The major areas of concern include the far west coast of B.C. and the Charlevoix/Quebec City region. “So, the system is able to detect those earthquakes, and then we cover areas where there’s also significant population concentrations or significant critical infrastructure…”

Test scenarios based on a 1946 Magnitude 7.3 Vancouver Island earthquake showed the system would be able to deliver 40 seconds of warning time in Vancouver and 50 seconds in Victoria, Seywerd reported. “One thing to note is that very close to the earthquake centre, there won’t be any warning.”

A scenario based on the 1988 Magnitude 5.9 Saguenay, Que. earthquake would provide nearly a minute-and-a-half of warning time for Montreal.

“Alert thresholds are based on the predicted magnitude and the predicted intensity of shaking,” Seywerd said. “We only intend to alert for potentially significant and harmful earthquakes.

“We don’t want to be waking people up in the middle of the night just to tell them the earthquake has happened.”

Feature image by iStock.com/Kenstocker