Special Report: 1st Anniversary of Wenchuan
Earthquake
BEIJING, May 11 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese official said Monday that an
experimental earthquake alert system, capable of sending warnings within seconds
before a quake strikes, would be installed in quake-prone areas.
Du Wei, deputy director of the Department of Earthquake Disaster Prevention
of the China Earthquake Administration, told reporters that the time varied for
warnings to reach population centers depending on the location of the
earthquake.
The system could send warnings to the epicenter area within seconds when
quakes occurred on land, while it took one to three minutes for the signals to
reach populated areas in the case of under-sea quakes, Du said.
The alert system, which would be established "within years," was still
experimental and could not provide fully effective information, he said.
There was a process of operating, experimenting, adjusting and improving,
he said.
The white paper on "China's Actions for Disaster Prevention and Reduction,"
issued by the Information Office of the State Council (cabinet) Monday, said
that a disaster monitoring and early warning system had taken initial shape in
China.
China was building a three-dimensional natural disaster monitoring system,
including land monitoring, ocean and ocean-bed observation, and space-air-ground
observation, it said.
China has built 937 fixed seismic stations and more than 1,000 mobile
seismic stations, enabling quasi-real-time monitoring of quakes above 3.0 on the
Richter scale.
In addition, 1,300 earthquake precursor observation stations have been
established, as well as a mobile observation network of more than 4,000 mobile
observation stations.
Seismological monitoring systems at the national and provincial levels have
taken initial shape. A high-speed seismic data network composed of 700
information nodes has been built. A text message service to provide prompt
earthquake reporting has been launched, according to the paper.
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