THE SEISMIC ALERT SYSTEM IN MEXICO CITY
AND THE SCHOOL PREVENTION PROGRAM
Espinosa Aranda J M1, A Jimenez, G Ibarrola, F Alcantar, A Aguilar, M Inostroza, S Maldonado
Director1, Centro de Instrumentacion y Registro Sismico, A.C.
Anaxagoras #814, C.P. 03020, Mexico, D.F.
E-mail: [email protected] Home page: http://www.cires.org.mx
R Higareda
Director, Direccion de Emergencia Escolar
Subsecretaria de Servicios Educativos del Distrito Federal
Secretaria de Educacion Publica
Callejon de Torresco #12, C.P. 04010, Mexico, D.F.
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract. The Seismic Alert System (SAS) is a public service developed with the
sponsorship of the City Government Authorities, with the aim to mitigate seismic
disasters. Since August, 1991, after 84 months of continuous operation, the SAS
has being capable to detect 681 seismic events in the Guerrero Coast; 12 of them
so strong to trigger general alerts in Mexico City, 33 restricted, and one false
general alert. The warning ranges strong or restricted correspond to seismic
magnitude forecasted great than 6, or great than 5. During the "Copala" M7.3
earthquake, in September 14, 1995 the SAS was activated and issued a general
warning signal in Mexico City, 72 seconds prior to the “S” ground motion first
arrivals. This earthquake warning reached an estimated population of more than 4
million citizens. The response of children in schools was massive because of the
application of an earthquake hazard reduction program. The Copala earthquake
helped us to identify the societal response strengths and weaknesses to the
earthquake early warning signal. The long-term plan of hazard mitigation of the
National Ministry of Public Education, Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP),
has created awareness to earthquakes in the children that have assisted in these
years to various school levels. Even though they did not suffered the disastrous
consequences of the 1985 earthquake, they are more aware than the average
people that lived through that disastrous event, who still are not trained.
2
1
INTRODUCTION
The idea of using the difference in velocities of earthquakes and electrical waves
for an earthquake early warning system was proposed in 1868 by Cooper (Cooper,
1868). In Mexico, seismological research shows a high probability that an strong
earthquake similar in size to the one in 1985, could occur in the Guerrero Gap,
between the cities of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo (Singh et al. 1981,1982.
Anderson et al. 1994). The consequences of this earthquake for Mexico City are
of high risk for the population because of soil conditions (Ordaz at al. 1995) and
structural characteristics of buildings.
In January 1986, after the big earthquakes that struck Mexico City in 1985, the
Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT) together with
the National Research Council (NRC) from USA, issued research
recommendations to learn about the damages suffered in this seismic event
(CONACyT, 1986).
The societal and technical study was a main issue to
promote the development of an earthquake early warning system, in attention to
the early 80’s, seismologist concern about the seismic hazard growing in the
“Guerrero Gap”.
The development and implementation of the Mexican SAS has being sponsored
by the Mexico City Government Authorities since 1989. This project started
operating in August 1991 for evaluation with a few users, and by the end of 1992
as an experimental project broadcasting the early warning to some public
elementary schools, applying it in 25 buildings where the earthquake warning
signal sounds when the SAS magnitude forecast is great than 5. The planning for
the dissemination and education program of the early warning signal was
conducted taking into account the opinions of public and private organizations for
emergency response, government officials, lifeline administrators, disaster
researchers, and the general population. Six public deliberations were carried out
in 1992, (Fundacion Javier Barros Sierra, 1992) giving conclusions that were used
to design experimental evaluation programs for the education of SAS users.
However, after the successful seismic detection that generated early warning
signals, between 65 to 73 sec. in advance, during two Guerrero earthquakes, M5.8
and M6, on May 14, 1993, (Espinosa-Aranda et al.,1995), as well as after two
years of initial operation with near to 100 seismic events detected, the Mexico
City Government Authorities announced the start of SAS as a public service in
August 1st, 1993. Since this date the early warning signal has being issued with
the support of many of the local AM/FM commercial radio stations in Mexico
City area, but in accordance with the Government recommendations, to protect the
3
population still not trained in prevention drills, the SAS general warning signal is
issued only if the magnitude forecast is grater than 6.
The fact that most major earthquakes which are likely to cause damage in
Mexico City will come from the Guerrero coast 280 km faraway, and the low
requirements of SAS development, maintenance and operation, give this project a
high benefit return and social value for the Mexico City population. Since January
1990 until December 1997, the system had a cost of $3 million dollars for
development, installation and operation. The 1998 maintenance budget is
$600,000 which includes the cost of some spare parts and technological
enhancement.
The 1993 administrative decision to start the SAS as a public service opened
the challenge of how to educate and prepare a population of 20 million people to
use the early warning signal. The effectiveness of a public earthquake early
warning system focus on the ability to provide alert as well as to have an adequate
population response.
The issuing of the seismic alert is only one element in the process where the
preparedness of city residents is fundamental. Drills and education can determine
the population proper response using the SAS alert signals. The M8.1 Michoacan
earthquake of September 19, 1985, at 7:19, killed about 10,000 people and injured
30,000 in Mexico City . The high cost in lives was due in part to the soil
conditions and structural characteristics of buildings, but also due to the lack of
any early warning signal, and culture for rapid response in case of big earthquakes
(Esteva, 1988).
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2
SOCIETAL RESPONSE TO THE EARTHQUAKE
EARLY WARNING SIGNAL
After the September 14, 1995, M7.3 “Copala” earthquake (Anderson et al. 1995),
where the SAS issued an alert signal to the public with a 72 seconds advantage, it
was estimated that the number of people warned during this earthquake was
4'389,000 (Espinosa et al. 1996). The response of the people to the early warning
signal is summarized in Table 1, where there are two groups of persons: those that
received training in a long term plan and those who had no training.
The training frequency for drills, Table 1, shows that children at public schools
receive intensive training in a systematic manner, with evacuation drills at least
each month. Other groups that received training with at least two evacuation drills
per year were the residents of El Rosario neighborhood.
2.1
Disaster Mitigation School Program
The program of rapid response for public and private schools for children in
Mexico City, started after the September 1985 earthquakes. Since 1986, the
National Ministry of Public Education Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP) is
sponsoring the development and implementation of a systemic earthquake hazard
reduction plan in Mexico City at all school levels, through their Emergency and
Security Program for Schools, Programa de Seguridad y Emergencia Escolar.
The goal of this program is to improve the response of children to a variety of
disasters, including earthquake disasters. It is focused primarily on school-age
youths and it applies to all local schools in Mexico City (National Ministry of
Public Education, 1997).
As a result of this program the ensuing evacuations to the “Copala” earthquake,
according to education officials, were orderly and well coordinated. Also a
comparative research about the children response to the early warning was
conducted on two private schools in Mexico City (Arjonilla, 1998).
The major goals of the SEP hazard reduction plan are:
1. The development of an Emergency and Personal Security School Program for
children Programa de Seguridad y Emergencia Escolar
2. The implementation of security committees in all schools
3. Evaluation of disaster impact, and
4. A School Disaster Action Plan
5
The activities promoted under the Emergency and Personal Security School
Program include developing instructional materials: booklets, posters, guides and
videos, the implementation of programs for the evaluation of student performance,
character education programs and community service projects with the Mexico
City Civil Protection authorities. The evaluation plans include developing
computer monitoring programs for controlling the evolution of the program. A
budget allocated to this project provides financial support to carry out all
activities.
The security committees are formed by teachers, children, parents, and school
authorities. There are working teams for evacuation, first aid, rescue and search of
buried people. The team members cooperate and share responsibility as leaders of
group, assistants, and volunteers.
Evaluation of disaster impact comprises the description of an earthquake
disaster risk scenario at every school, the list of all buildings that could be
destroyed, damaged or affected by a strong earthquake, the quantity and
distribution of children and the type of evacuation that they can make, plans for
evacuation for that situation and the establishment of safety zones for students.
The School Disaster Action Plan is carried out practicing response simulation
to earthquakes with evacuation drills. Since 1992, this plan started to use the
restricted range early warning signals of the SAS, in one set of 25 schools
(National Ministry of Public Education, 1995). Before installing the SAS
receivers teachers and parents were informed about the purpose of SAS. Today
these drills are carried out in almost 6,223 schools, the majority of them with no
SAS radio receivers. In those schools with no SAS receivers, in accordance with
the SEP official recommendations, at least two persons of the service personnel
are in charge of hearing AM-FM radio receivers during labor hours, to activate
local sirens if the SAS general warning is issued.
Table 2 shows the results obtained from the application of this program,
between 1990 and 1996. Until 1996 the total of schools in the program were 6,332
with 99% of them applying the Emergency and Personal Security School
Program. The average drill per school was between 0.8 to 1.5 per month. Typical
evacuation times are 60 s for children at Pre-school where all the buildings have
one level, for Primary School the average time is 80 s and for Secondary School
times vary from 45 to 90 s. During the evacuation children have slogans like “I
don’t run, I don’t push and I don’t scream”.
The restricted warning signals are sent to the 25 original selected schools when
the SAS seismic magnitude forecast is great than 5, one each two months average,
and the general warning, when the SAS seismic magnitude forecast is great than 6
one each 9 months on the average.
The composition of the school population are students from all educational
levels. Children ages 41 days to 5 years from day nursery, ages 4 to 6 from
kindergarten or Pre-school, ages 6 to 11 of elementary school and ages 12 to 14 in
secondary schools, ages 12 or above in technical secondary schools and TV
6
secondary, ages 15 or above at Postsecondary and all ages in special educational
for children with disabilities
2.2
Other trained groups
Community-based organizations at the big housing complex El Rosario and the
local city government carry out disaster prevention activities such as practice of
earthquake response simulations. Since 1995, El Rosario has a public audio
warning system with some high power loud-speakers installed in towers,
controlled by the SAS. Also, with the same system, between 1995 and 1997,
others universities like the Tecnologico de Monterrey and the Universidad
Autonoma Metropolitana, started using the SAS warning signals in their campus.
2.3
Groups with no training
The average Mexico City adult residents who listen the alert signals by the
commercial radio stations have no training in evacuation or earthquake mitigation,
although the government of Mexico City in 1995 disseminated a brochure to 2
million households, and for some time a spot was transmitted repeatedly along the
day in the radio stations to promote the earthquake education and rapid response.
These procedures have been recommended for communicating risk (Mileti, 1990).
However, earthquake drills for the average city resident have not been carried out
frequently.
Other important user group is the people traveling at the Mexico City METRO
who does not hear the SAS warning signal, because the signal is issued to
operators to travel and stop the trains at the next station, where they open the
doors and wait for the seismic effects or receipt further instructions.
7
3
SAS PERFORMANCE
Since August, 1991, after 84 months of continuous operation, the SAS has being
capable to detect 681 seismic events in the Guerrero Coast; 12 of them so strong
to trigger general alerts in Mexico City, 33 restricted ones, and one false general
alert. The performance and reliability of SAS is continuously monitored (Jimenez
et al. 1993). There are two scenarios in the issue of the early warning signal; one
for earthquakes striking at night and the other for earthquakes striking at day on
working hours.
One of the factors for the success of SAS during the “Copala” earthquake was
probably because it occurred at 8:04 in the morning, the day time scenario, with
the majority of people awake and the children at schools, with an estimated scope
of 4'389,000 people covered by the warning signal. In a night scenario this
situation could be less favorable. By now only the people at El Rosario housing
complex or the people who live near the schools or universities with loudspeakers
installed could be reached by the earthquake early warning sound.
The SAS does not get the same results in day or night and during those months
when the children are in vacations, but we are starting the installation of
commercial telecontrolled warning receivers, capable to be turn on and warn
when the SAS issues its alert signals.
8
4
CONCLUSION
The SAS lesson in Mexico City during the “Copala” earthquake help us to
identify the societal response strengths and weaknesses about the earthquake early
warning signal.
The main goal of the SAS is life safety. The long term plan of hazard
mitigation of the SEP has created awareness to earthquakes in the children who
have assisted during these years to the various levels of school. Even though they
did not suffered the disastrous consequences of the 1985 earthquake, they are
more aware than the average people that lived through that event, who still are not
trained. The SEP program ensures that all students, teachers, parents and school
officials will have the training and support they need to carry out an adequate drill
response.
There is a need to identify how the not trained general public responds to the
early warning signal. The ability of the general public that listens to the radio to
respond to early warning signals should be improved. Improvised response and
decisions of untrained people should be avoided.
More involvement is needed from federal and local government decision
makers to carry out a general program to improve awareness in the average people
and promote mechanisms that could be used when an earthquake strikes at night.
There is a need to generate more awareness about the seismic risk in Mexico City.
Fortunately the “Guerrero Gap” big earthquake has not occurred and we can
propose and discuss new ideas and programs to prepare the untrained people.
9
5
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Daniel Ruiz who was head of the Public Works Department of Mexico
City, Secretaría General de Obras del Gobierno del Distrito Federal, and
sponsored the development and implementation of the Seismic Alert System,
since the beginning of the project in 1990, to November of 1997. Also to Cesar
Buenrostro the new head of the Public Works Department, who accepted the
challenge to continue promoting and sponsoring the SAS use. The invaluable
collaboration of the National Ministry of Public Education Secretaria de
Educacion Publica, who started the experimental use of the SAS radio receivers
in many schools of Mexico City since 1992.
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6
REFERENCES
Anderson J, Quaas R, Singh S K, Espinosa-Aranda J M, Jimenez A; Lermo J, Cuenca J,
Sanchez S F, Meli R, Ordaz M, Alcocer S, Lopez B, Alcantara L, Mena E, Javier C,
(1995) The Copala Guerrero, Mexico Earthquake of September 14, 1995 (MW=7.4): A
Preliminary Report, Seismological Research Letters, 66, No 6, November-December, pp
11-19
Anderson J, Brune J, Prince J, R Quaas, Singh S K, Almora D, Bodin P, Oñate M, Vazquez
J R, Velasco J M, (1994) Guerrero Mexico, Accelerograph Array: Summary of Data:
1988, Geofisica Internacional, 33, pp 341-371
Arjonilla E, (1998) Estudio comparativo sobre el sismo del 14 de septiembre de 1995,
Consejo Mexicano de Ciencias Sociales, A.C.
CONACyT, NRC (1986) Investigacion para aprender de los sismos de septiembre 1985 en
Mexico: Informe Tecnico preparado por comites conjuntos del Consejo Nacional de
Ciencia y Tecnologia (Mexico) y el National Research Council (EUA), Enero de 1986
Cooper J D, MD (1868) Letter to editor, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, Nov. 3,
1868
Espinosa Aranda J M, A Jimenez; G Ibarrola, F Alcantar, A Aguilar, M Inostroza, S
Maldonado, (1995) Mexico City Seismic Alert System, Seismological Research
Letters, 66, No 6, November-December, pp 42-53
Espinosa Aranda J M, A Jimenez; G Ibarrola, F Alcantar, A Aguilar, M Inostroza, S
Maldonado, (1996) Results of the Mexico City Early Warning System, 11th World
Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Acapulco, Mexico, June 23-28
Esteva L, (1988) The Mexico Earthquake of September 19, 1985--Consequences, Lessons,
and Impact on Research and Practice, Earthquake Spectra, 4, Number 3
Fundacion Javier Barros Sierra, (1992) Aprovechamiento de la Alerta Sismica, File report
on Public deliberations carried out in fall 1992
Jimenez A, Espinosa J M, Alcantar F, Garcia J, (1993) Analisis de confiabilidad del Sistema de Alerta Sismica, X Congreso Nacional de Ingenieria Sismica, Puerto Vallarta, Jal,
Mexico, pp 629-634
Mileti D S, (1990) Communicating Public Earthquake Risk Information, Prediction and
Perception of Natural Hazards, Proceedings Symposium, 22-26, October 1990, Perugia,
Italy, pp 143-152
National Ministry of Public Education Secretaria de Educacion Publica, Mexico 1995
Evaluacion de la Operacion del Programa Piloto Sistema de Alerta Sismica en Planteles
de Educacion Basica. Direccion General de Operacion de Servicios Educativos en el
Distrito Federal
National Ministry of Public Education Secretaria de Educacion Publica, Mexico 1997
Memorias de Gestion Educativa 1994-1997
Ordaz M, Sanchez-Sesma F, Singh S K, (1995) La respuesta sismica en el Valle de Mexico
(observaciones y modelos), Ingenieria Civil, 317, Mexico, septiembre 1995
11
Singh, S K, L Astiz, and J Havskov (1981) Seismic gaps and recurrence periods of large
earthquakes along the Mexican subduction zone: a reexamination, Bull. Seism.Soc.Am.
71, pp 827-843
Singh, S K, J M Espindola, J Yamamoto, and J Havskov (1982) Seismic potential of the
Acapulco-San Marcos region along the Mexican subduction zone, Geophys. Res.
Letters 9, pp 633-636
Table 1. People in Mexico City reached by the “Copala” Sep. 14, 1995, SAS
earthquake early warning signal
Users
Type of user
%
People
Drills per
warned
year
Children at public schools
trained
44
1,970,000
10
Listeners of radio stations
Users at public places with
alert METRO
Users in El Rosario complex
not trained
not trained
46
9
2,000,000
400,000
?
0
trained
1
10,000
2
Total
-
100
4'389,000
-
Table 2. Results of the Emergency and Personal Security School Program
SCHOOL
TERM
TOTAL
SCHOOLS
1989-1990
1990-1991
1991-1992
1992-1993
1993-1994
1994-1995
1995-1996
5,585
5,730
5,641
5,596
5,876
6,207
6,332
SCHOOL COMMITTEES
SECURITY
DISASTER IMPACT
TOTAL
%
TOTAL
%
5,505
98.6
831
14.9
5,618
98.0
4,215
73.6
5,475
97.1
4,622
81.9
5,407
96.6
5,079
90.8
5,775
98.3
5,330
90.7
6,058
97.6
5,839
94.1
6,246
99.0
6,223
98.0
DISASTER ACTION
PLAN
TOTAL
%
659
11.8
4,224
73.7
4,481
79.4
4,919
87.9
5,330
90.7
4,724
76.1
6,223
98.0