Posted on March 30, 2011 by Mark Darbyshire

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Posted on March 1, 2011 by Brendan Wright

Roam3 Ltd says its aftershock early warning system has been providing up to three seconds warning of approaching aftershocks to people in the heavily damaged Christchurch CBD.

Their prototype system was deployed after the recent magnitude 6.3 aftershock at the request of Civil Defence. Warning devices are being trialled by USAR team members, although problems with cell towers limit its effectiveness in some areas.

Jon Mitchell, manager of the Canterbury Regional Emergency Management Office which is supporting the project, says: “Events like this earthquake, thankfully, do not occur often, so the opportunity to test cutting-edge safety enhancement equipment cannot be allowed to pass by. We are very keen to assess the effectiveness of Roam3 devices and applications, while contributing to the safety of responders and the community”.

Dr Mark Quigley, Senior Lecturer in Active Tectonics and Geomorphology at the University of Canterbury, says “While not familiar with the Roam3 technology, earthquake alarm systems have been implemented in several countries around the world. They have the potential to provide alarms seconds to tens of seconds prior to major ground shaking caused by an earthquake, depending on the proximity of the earthquake. My feeling is that modern technology should be used to the best of our abilities to reduce casualties from an earthquake; this technology may be a step in the right direction.”

“To be honest I was quite surprised when it gave me about three seconds prior warning of an aftershock in the CBD on the day we deployed it, considering the mobile network congestion at the time” says Roam3′s Director Brendan Wright. “It can’t provide prior warnings for quakes occurring right under the city, but we’re looking to improve it and possibly move to public trials. We need more locations to put sensors out and help from IT people and volunteers. Please visit www.roam3.com for more information.”

Roam3 Ltd, a Christchurch based software development company, has been working with the Canterbury Civil Defence Emergency Management Group for the past 12 months on developing a series of software modules enabling New Zealand citizens to prepare for and manage disasters.

 

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Posted on March 1, 2011 by Brendan Wright

Roam3 Ltd says its earthquake early warning system has been providing up to three seconds warning of approaching aftershocks to people in the heavily damaged Christchurch CBD.

Jon Mitchell, manager of the Canterbury Regional Emergency Management Office which is supporting the project, says: “Events like this earthquake, thankfully, do not occur often, so the opportunity to test cutting-edge safety enhancement equipment cannot be allowed to pass by. We are very keen to assess the effectiveness of Roam3 devices and applications, while contributing to the safety of responders and the community”.

“We weren’t really sure if this would work as an early warning system when Civil Defence asked us to set it up,” says Roam3′s Director Brendan Wright. “During development we had done initial testing on aftershocks from the 2010 Canterbury Earthquake, and were fairly confident that it could do the somewhat easier task of providing a warning message to people after the shaking had reached them.

“Somewhat surprisingly, the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) personal we spoke to assured us that even without any advance warning this system could be very useful to them.”

Seismic waves of the correct frequency can cause a building to vibrate, amplifying the strength of the shaking. He says that aftershocks USAR teams can’t even feel as they are walking around can still be sufficient to dislodge loose debris from the heavily damaged buildings.

“Apparently the USAR teams often have people stationed outside a damaged structure they are working in, waiting for any aftershocks so that they can warn those moving around inside,” Brendan said.

“Our device vibrates and plays a loud ‘Earthquake Possible!’ message that can confirm to the rescuers that the shaking they are feeling really is an aftershock – and not just a truck driving past or their imagination. It can also warn of shaking too small for them to feel that might still dislodge something.

“We’ve had donations of Google Android smartphones from Telecom and Vodafone as well as some funding from Civil Defence to buy some to use as warning devices. We’re also extremely grateful for help we’ve received from the Air Force, Snap Internet and Unleash.

“We still sometimes have issues getting people in past the cordons to get the devices to the USAR operations area, despite the ID’s we’ve been given.

“We also have trouble with extreme mobile network congestion around the USAR operations zone slowing down our warnings. For their ops area we’d like to talk to the telcos about ‘traffic shaping’, and we also hope to get two devices on different mobile networks to each rescuer so that they have more chance of getting a good signal. It’s important that those in charge of the teams can see how it works so that they can decide how they want to deploy it.

“Another concern USAR have raised is the ability of our warning devices to handle the extremely rough environment – we are hoping they will prioritize the safety of their teams rather than be too concerned about damaging the devices.”

It is the ability to provide a warning before the ground starts shaking that perhaps raises the most interest – and scepticism – amongst the public.

“When Civil Defence originally asked us to go into the CBD and get our sensor gear out we didn’t have much luck trying to convince the police we were legitimate, despite the paperwork we had been given. At one point a policeman – probably stressed out from dealing with looters – forced me back out of the CBD again under threat of arrest!”

Dr Mark Quigley, Senior Lecturer in Active Tectonics and Geomorphology at the University of Canterbury, says “While not familiar with the Roam3 technology, earthquake alarm systems have been implemented in several countries around the world. They have the potential to provide alarms seconds to tens of seconds prior to major ground shaking caused by an earthquake, depending on the proximity of the earthquake. My feeling is that modern technology should be used to the best of our abilities to reduce casualties from an earthquake; this technology may be a step in the right direction.”

Brendan says the ability to provide an advance warning is due to the fact that seismic waves actually travel fairly slowly through the ground compared to the speed at which modern communications can be made to operate.

“The trick is to send a warning from a sensor near the epicentre and get it to a warning device before the shaking has travelled the intervening distance. Geonet’s network – although far larger and in most ways more advanced than the one we’ve deployed – cannot send sensor readings out fast enough for what we’re doing.

“We guessed that the seismic waves would be travelling through the rock of Bank’s Peninsula faster than the speeds we saw when we first tested this system on the gravelly Canterbury Plains after the Darfield earthquake in 2010. This made us unsure if we could provide any advance warning at all considering how close to the city the epicentre actually was and the congestion on the cell towers at the time.”

Although it was initially reported that the 6.3-magnitude quake on Tuesday the 22nd of Feb was centred on Lyttelton, Geonet maps now show that it occurred on the city side of Christchurch’s Port Hills.

“A few hours after the Air Force helped us deploy our sensors I was sitting in the EOC at the Arts Gallery (in Christchurch’s CBD) with a warning device in my hands. A warning came through and then about three seconds later I felt the ground shaking. Considering the heavy network congestion there I was somewhat surprised it worked that well!”

“A number of times now we’ve had a warning one or two seconds before we felt the shaking. It’s not much time because of how close to the city the aftershocks are occuring and the fact that we currently only have four sensors deployed, but it’s enough to start running if you are a standing under loose debris.”

How valuable a few seconds can be is something Brendan experienced first hand after Tuesday’s 6.3-magnitude aftershock.

“I was in the CBD when it struck and our building suffered very little damage. We got out and I worked my way down Tuam Street looking for trapped survivors.

“I found myself outside Poplar St I think it is. It’s a very narrow alleyway with three storey high brick walls either side of it. The street was totally covered with fallen bricks and the top sections of both walls seemed to have fallen in. There were precarious looking bricks all along the top of both walls.

“My first thought was ‘this place will be a death-trap if an aftershock hits’. I was standing outside it feeling like someone should go down it and look for survivors, but not really having the courage to do it myself. Then someone else went in and I decided I should follow him – I thought if he gets injured he’ll need someone to help him out.

“A few minutes later he was nowhere to be seen and I was standing in the middle of the lane scrambling over the piles of rubble. Then my worst fears came true as an aftershock hit. I looked up to see bricks falling down on me from both walls on either side. I started to try and run over the rubble but they were hitting the ground around me before I made it out into a more open area.

“I was lucky to get out of there alive. If I’d had just a couple of seconds warning I could probably have made it to safety before the falling bricks hit the ground. So I know first hand how useful this could be in the environment the USAR people work in.”

Roam3′s software is designed to run on computers, smartphones like iPhone and Google Android, as well as cheaper Java-capable mobile phones.

“In New Zealand SMS messaging isn’t fast enough or reliable enough for what we’re doing, so we install custom software onto phones that runs over 3G or 2G, and also have early prototype software for computers. Right now we think our software is good enough to be useful to USAR, but it really needs a lot of work to be done on it in order for it to be useful to the general public.

“We developed the prototype at our own cost and are providing this service free to the USAR teams. We are really grateful for the help they’re providing in testing the system out in such a difficult environment for us. The feedback they are giving is really valuable.

“In the short term we’d like help to expand our sensor network and get some more funds to supply warning devices to every USAR team member. Just charging and managing that number of phones is a lot of work however and we’d need volunteers too.”

Roam3 has high hopes their prototype could be turned into a warning system for the general public in the future.

“In the long term we would like to get some funding or investment to scale it up for a full public trial. Providing much prior warning for the current aftershocks is difficult because they’re so close – sometimes right under the city. However we think we might be able to provide fifteen or more seconds of warning to people in Christchurch for earthquakes generated by the Alpine or Hope faults”.

There have been a number of views expressed by geologists regarding the chances of future big aftershocks in the Canterbury region. Brendan says he doesn’t know much about it but he hopes this is the end of the big ones.

And if not?

“On one hand it’s dangerous to say you could provide a warning service for any future quakes in the Canterbury region, because I assume it may still be possible we could get another big one very close to the city. This would make providing significant warning almost impossible – at least with our technology.

“On the other hand, on the off chance something big does happen again a bit further away from the city, and considering the amount of deaths that have occurred recently and the fact that our prototype system seems to us to be working quite well, I think it might be prudent to consider a trial deployment for warning the general public.”

“But again with a risk of another big quake too close to populated areas or too deep to provide a decent amount of warning, we’d have to be extremely careful not to give any expectation our system could be relied on. Because it was so close to the city we doubt we would have done anything particularly useful to warn most of the victims of the recent 6.3-magnitude aftershock even if we had been in a position to deploy the system publicly.

“At this stage we’d like to know how much interest there is from citizens, the government, USAR, the RT teams, geologists, emergency workers and investors regarding a public trial. We’re also asking for IT people interested in helping us develop our system and volunteers interested in helping us keep our devices charged and deploying them to USAR teams.

“I think that if as a result of this series of quakes we were able to develop and test something that will minimise loss of life in the future events like an Alpine Fault rupture – that we know must happen eventually and a NZ Herald article I read suggested could kill thousands of people without sufficient warning – then it just might prove to be something positive that has come out of this terrible disaster.” He asks that those interested in expressing support or helping out with what they are doing contact them via their website at www.roam3.com.

Roam3 Ltd, a Christchurch based software development company, has been working with the Canterbury Civil Defence Emergency Management Group for the past 12 months on developing a series of software modules enabling New Zealand citizens to prepare for and manage disasters.

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