Publication: Rapid Fatality Estimates after Earthquakes in Western Mediterranean Countries for First Response

After large earthquakes worldwide, local communications are usually knocked out, but potential international rescuers need to know whether or not to respond. The International Centre for Earth Simulation Foundation, associate partner of the GOBEYOND project, issues estimates of the number of fatalities within 25 minutes, on average, for worldwide large earthquakes. In the project, they are working to reduce this delay to a few minutes by automating their calculations and including information on size and location of earthquakes from operators of regional seismograph networks because time matters in the race for first responders to rescue injured people.

They have calibrated their calculation tool based on past earthquakes that have caused fatalities in Italy, Greece, Morocco and Spain; thus, they are confident that they can distinguish disastrous from inconsequential earthquakes in the Western Mediterranean area within minutes. An example of their estimate of shaking due to a magnitude M6.2 earthquake in Northern Greece is shown in Figure 1. The calculated intensities and fatalities match the observed ones.

The greatest remaining challenge is to know an accurate location within minutes, which is needed for reliable estimates of fatalities. The variations of location estimates for an M5.7 in Greece reach 10 km and more (Figure 2). The only remedy is to obtain location estimates from regional seismograph networks capable of accurate locations.

This study, conducted by Max Wyss and Philippe Rosset from the International Centre for Earth Simulation Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland, was recently published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America and is available on request from max@maxwyss.ch.