Israeli inventor Meir Gitlis developed the system, which has received
much attention in the wake of the disastrous earthquake which
devastated much of southeast Asia's coastline. Gitlis said that he
doesn't claim his early warning system could have made much of a
difference, but any advance warning would have been better than none
and indeed could have saved lives.
"Since the disaster occurred in the Far East, we've gotten requests
from companies to use our sensor technology and to develop an
instrument warning against tsunamis," Gitlis said.
Gitlis's "Earthquake Alert" is based on the same seismological
principles as earthquake monitoring systems used by weather
centers and government agencies worldwide. It contains an array of
pendulums that react naturally
to vibrations, sending a signal through an electronic circuit to a
chip. After analyzing the frequency, the computer chip determines
whether the movement was caused by a sonic boom, a bomb or indeed
caused by the tremors of an earthquake.
"An earthquake is like lightning or thunder, first comes the primary
waves which run through the ground very quickly," said Gitlis. "The
instrument can sense the primary wave which occurs tens of seconds
before the secondary wave, which is the destructive wave. The
advancewarning of a half minute enables people to find cover."
Gitlis said that Israel's Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv - the country's
tallest buildings - have installed the Earthquake Alert in the
skyscrapers' elevators. In the event of a quake, the system stops the
elevators at the nearest floor, allowing people a chance to escape.
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo
tested the sensor recently and concluded that it is reliable and does
not react to false alarms.
An Israeli invention provides early warning in the event of an
earthquake like the one which devastated southeast Asia last month.
The device is as small as a shoebox and will cost consumers less than $200.