Google alerted Californians to an earthquake before it happened | Hacker News Reader

Google alerted Californians to an earthquake before it happened

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95 pointsmikece41 comments

Too bad Google gets the credit for the amazing https://www.shakealert.org system developed by the USGS and other public entities. Altering the user is the easy part, detecting the earthquake is the hard part.

"altering" made me laugh a bit. I think you mean "alerting"! :)

That's a narrow take.

Detecting an earthquake early and alerting millions of people quickly are both hard problems, and both had to be solved for this to work.

Much of the hard work on Google's side just happens to overlap with other use cases that they've already scaled.

Were it be built from scratch earthquake detection is still harder part than message distribution.

"deliver same message to subset of subscribers" scales horizontally pretty easily.

Be my guest to go build one then.

Oh but if you're truly committed you'll need to avoid Cloud computing resources, avoid Twillio, don't use any Google services, no Firebase Cloud messaging... You probably shouldn't use Android phones either...

And remember any delayed or failed messages put people's lives in danger...

Or we can just admit that Google as a whole had some impressive achievements here alongside the Earthquake team.

Come on, this is a mean-spirited mischaracterization of what they wrote.

I thought it was fair given their oversimplification of what delivering messages at scale requires.

The point isn't that the Earthquake Detection isn't impressive. Why do we have to deny Google any credit here? Is it just because they're a big tech company?

IMO it feels like another "I could build Dropbox in a weekend" comment.

Android also has a "detection" feature in non ShakeAlert locations. Android phones' accelerometer is used to detect earthquakes and warn other phones in the area: https://crisisresponse.google/android-alerts/

Android phones' accelerometer also detected the tremors: https://twitter.com/davey_burke/status/1585148438844694528

It's a pretty cool technical problem to solve while optimizing latency.

HN Title: Google alerted Californians to an earthquake before it happened

Actual (accurate) Title: [How] Google Alerted Californians to an Earthquake Before It Hit

Hit vs Happened is a critical difference. (I think the "how" is trimmed by HN and not objectionable.)

It wasn't clear to me why so many sources describing this as an "Android" feature. It felt like a PR push, but maybe I'm wrong. This article caused me to pick that apart a little bit.

* The data comes from ShakeAlert (USGS).

* The alerts can be sent to your Android or iOS phone via the MyShake app

* According to Wikipedia, 3 apps are licensed to work with USGS ShakeAlert: "QuakeAlertUSA", "MyShake", and "SD Emergency" (San Diego). [1]

What's the reason Android keeps getting such a plug here?

Best I can see:

* Android has built-in functionality to alert users, so they don't have to take the proactive step of downloading an app. Presumably any system that's opt-in is going to be far less valuable (I imagine not even 5% of iOS users have an earthquake alerting app, even in CA, let alone nationwide/worldwide).

* Android phones are auto-participating in uploading data to the ShakeAlert system (somehow), when plugged in and locked. I think this is really neat tech and has a ton of promise, although it's unclear to me if it is of great value to ShakeAlert in a state that's presumably well-instrumented by precision sensors already.

Great use cases:

* More people being notified is more value. Most people don't bother to download an earthquake app, particularly if elderly, or traveling from a non-quake-prone region to a quake-prone region.

* Detection in more sparsely populated areas or areas not well-covered by precision instruments.

Concerns:

* Being auto-opted-in. Today: Earthquakes. Tomorrow: Shotspotter (gunshot location). Next year: protests against our tech overlords.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShakeAlert#MyShake

> What's the reason Android keeps getting such a plug here?

Maybe Google paid for it.

Never forget the Submarine. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

I got an alert through the emergency alert system on my iPhone (during the quake though, not before it, but the report said that was also true of some Android alerts). I don’t have an app installed that was responsible for it.

Yes the alert gets sent to every cellphone user. Not just those who installed the ShakeAlert app. Whereas actually installing the ShakeAlert app helps improve crowdsourced early warnings on intensity and location.

It is absolutely not necessary to install the ShakeAlert app to get the alerts. But it is a good civic-minded thing, and it does not compromise privacy.

Interesting. I only got it via the MyShake app on my iPhone (Apple watch, actually). I can't imagine there's logic to disable the EWS alert for something I got a push notification for. Or maybe I'm remembering wrong.

Yes all attribution should be to ShakeAlert and their research partners (USGS + universities), I cite the URL above. Not attributed to "Google" or "Apple", no more than we ascribe JK Rowling's works to her word processor manufacturer.

> More people being notified is more value. Most people don't bother to download an earthquake app, particularly if elderly, or traveling from a non-quake-prone region to a quake-prone region.

There are two separate considerations to cellphone-based Earthquake Early Warning: 1. even a small percent of local people installing the ShakeAlert app give decent coverage to everyone. Remember the USGS already also have fixed (non-cellphone) sensors [https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/monitoring] and I expect transit and other govt agencies too, anyone got a links? 2. then cellphones get used to immediately send (opt-in) early warning alerts to all cellphone users (not just users who installed ShakeAlert), freeway alert signs for drivers, transit passengers, etc.

Google’s system uses a combination of ShakeAlert signals and proprietary technology. ShakeAlert is only used in California, Washington, and Oregon. You can read more:

- https://blog.google/products/android/earthquake-detection-an...

https://blog.google/products/android/earthquake-detection-an...

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/28/22407676/google-expands-a...

Self-correction: my friend who knows people who worked on this tells me: turns out Google did implement some specific seismic signal-processing in Android API around 2016/7.

The title seems inaccurate. The system reports only once an earthquake has begun, it is not predicting an earthquake before it happens. Since the earthquake takes time to propagate, this can give warning ahead of time for those sufficiently far away. However if you were right at the epicenter you would not have advanced notice.

No, "Google" did not do it; the ShakeAlert program [0] and their research partners [1] (USGS, CalOES, Cal Geological Survey, CalTech, UC Berkeley Seismological Lab, UW, UOregon, ETH Zurich (SED), Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation). Seems like they're doing an A+ job on the technical work and a D job on self-promotion :) , it's impossible to find a single webpage listing the ShakeAlert project's team, current and former. But they deserve due recognition and praise.

As to @datadata's comment, "Earthquake Early Warning system" doesn't mean "predictive seismology", it means a (crowdsourced syndicated sensor-based) early warning of maybe 1-10 seconds, on the surface, P waves travel at 3.7 miles/s [2]. Even a 10-second early warning is enough to signal transit, turn off pipelines, put up early warning signs on freeway and in transit, send textphone alerts, avoid disasters, save lives, etc. This was one of the lessons learned from 1989.

This project is a success story and deserves to be written about more. I'd also be interested also to read about the level of interoperability with earthquake and tsunami early warning systems in Japan, SE Asia, ME etc. An alarming counterstory was the 2018 Indonesia tsunami early detection buoys (off Sulawesi) haven't worked for six years due to 'lack of funding'

@alvarezbjm-hn: I helped organize a talk by one of the UCB SeismoLab researchers, she specifically addressed the privacy concerns people occasionally ask about ShakeAlert not retaining PII or being useable for tracking individuals. As to Android itself, that's a different story. (But if you wanted an app to track people intrusively, an app that doesn't use PII and is from a US-taxpayer funded program with federal and state oversight is probably like the last target you'd pick...)

(As to ascribing everything that happens on an Android phone to "Google", if the phone market/OS majority was Xiaomi or Huawei or HarmonyOS, the result would be the same. Google did not make the phone hardware or its MEMS accelerometer)

[0]: https://www.shakealert.org/

[1]: "ShakeAlert—An earthquake early warning system for the United States west coast, USGS Fact Sheet 2014-3083" https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/fs20143083

[2]: https://www.britannica.com/science/seismic-wave

One key local SF Bay Area agency partnering for Earthquake Early Warning is BART, they operate the mass transit (partially underground, and have a tunnel under the Bay Bridge, and more tunneling under construction to connect to San Jose Diridon)

https://www.bart.gov/guide/safety/earthquake

Early Warning Earthquake System

BART is an early adopter of the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System. It has been in place at BART since August 2012 and in 2017 we upgraded to the new ShakeAlert 2.0 system. There are two servers receiving a continuous stream of messages from more than one hundred seismic stations located throughout Northern California. It receives actual shaking data from each seismic station once per second. The BART server calculates the earthquake's seismic intensity within nanoseconds, and if the seismic intensity -- or MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale) -- is greater than IV, the server will automatically signal trains to reduce speeds. Trains then automatically begin slowing to 27 mph. It takes about 20 seconds for trains in Automatic Train Operation at 70 mph to slow to 27 mph.

This system removes human response time and can even slow trains down before the shaking occurs depending on how far away the quake is centered. Early warning depends on where the earthquake occurs. The farther away the shaking occurs, the more advance warning we get. The system can provide as as much as a 50 seconds early warning for earthquakes at or beyond extremes of the monitored region. For quakes centered within the BART region, there is no early warning but the system has the advantage of automated response to slow the trains instead of requiring human reaction.

In 2020, BART and US Geographic Survey extended its agreement for BART to continue to use ShakeAlert data.

09-27-2012 "BART teams with UC Berkeley to adopt earthquake early warning system" https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2012/news20120927

They should just license this tech from Japan, who has already solved this problem and put it in production since 2007.

So it was operating for four years already when the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami hit Fukushima? That adds some color to the story that I haven’t seen reported.

Edit: Yep, indeed. Wikipedia says it underestimated the quake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Japa...

It warns a few seconds ahead of time. The tsunami appears a few minutes later. What are you gonna do, build a concrete tsunami wall in a couple of minutes?

The tsunami hit an hour later. That seems like plenty of time to get fire trucks, backup generators, and other emergency equipment prepped. But of course hindsight is 20/20. The predictions were off and the emergency preparedness wasn’t what it should be.

I still think it’s interesting that they did have plenty of advanced warning, albeit underestimated. Most of the reporting I’ve seen made it sound like what you said, that it happened suddenly.

I watched the news streams at 2am US Pacific time while that Tsunami hit.. the earthquake was well in advance of the power plant event, and yes they knew. Also the Fk power plant had a tidal wall built around it already, but fatefully not large enough.

With the EEW having been around for a while at that point, it seems obvious that there should have been an automated system to begin a graceful shutdown of the reactor when a nearby quake was detected.

I guess that may not have helped in this case, given that the EEW underestimated the quake. Although, hopefully such a system would have a sensitivity threshold that accounts for that.

Edit: The reactors did shut down automatically at some point, although it’s not clear to me if it happened immediately as a result of the EEW or after damage was detected. At any rate, lack of electricity for cooling was the real problem.

>With the EEW having been around for a while at that point, it seems obvious that there should have been an automated system to begin a graceful shutdown of the reactor when a nearby quake was detected.

Uh, just no. First, it was most powerful registered earthquake in Japan which means that reactor survived every previous one just fine

Second, it did shut down when it detected earthquake. The disaster didn't happen because it didn't start to shut down

The failure was because emergency power supply needed to cool the reactor during shutdown also failed due to tsunami.

Like, fuck, at least read wikipedia page before spewing bollocks

That's correct about Japan already having this technology. It was quite necessary given their use of some of the highest-speed trains in the world. These trains will stop immediately upon getting the signal from the early warning system.

Japanese researchers found that there are 'P-waves' that precede the more damaging waves, which they used to create this early warning system, made up of thousands of seismometers placed throughout the country. Chile hopes to use this same technology for their own public safety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Japa...

We've know about P-waves for at least 60+ years. The "early warning" ability is dependent on the speed of light exceeding the propagation delay of physical motion. In case anyone were unclear, there is no magic rock whispering AI that can predict an earthquake. Corralitos "anomaly" and characteristic foreshocks are wishful thinking. There are only alarms for when they are happening.

This also happened in Iceland early this year. Some people got the notification ahead of the earthquake but I got mine afterwards

how far ahead?

I think just a few minutes in most cases

There was a USGS project floated around 2012 to use 1k-100k smartphones and their accelerometers to identifying precursor events and gather higher-resolution when analyzed together, but individually less accurate by "station", seismic data.

Is that such a big news? we have a earth quake warning system in Japan for a long time. Works well, you receive an message and audio alarm on your smartphone usually a couple of seconds before the earth quake hits.

I wonder if there is any chance the system to be also installed in Eastern Mediterranean (Greece, Italy, Turkey) which is severely affected by earthquakes all of the time?

So can this network collect and use phone-generated timestamps to determine the epicenter and the propagation of the wavefront(s) in real time ?

I got it on iOS from myshake app

TLDR:USGS has built a system that can warn you of earthquakes and Google sent a notification from it to Android phones in the area seconds before the quake struck them.

Separately, Google is collecting data from your phone while plugged in and locked.

Not just USGS. Actually ShakeAlert program partners are: USGS, CalOES, Cal Geological Survey, CalTech, UC Berkeley Seismological Lab, UW, UOregon, ETH Zurich (SED), Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Cool to know google is gathering your sensors data realtime. Microphones included?

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