Product News・2019-01-21

BXB EEW Earthquake Early Warning App Software Introduction

Product News PDF Download [Written by / General Manager's Office]

According to data provided by the Central Weather Bureau, Taiwan is located at the junction where the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate collide, making it a typical continental margin island formed by plate collision, with an average of 15,000 to 18,000 earthquakes occurring annually. Historical records show that Taiwan has experienced multiple disastrous earthquakes over the past century, causing heavy casualties and property losses. Examples include the 1906 Meishan earthquake, the 1935 Hsinchu-Taichung earthquake, the 1941 Chungpu earthquake, the 1951 Hualien-Taitung longitudinal valley earthquakes, the 1964 Baihe earthquake, the 1986 Hualien earthquake, and the unforgettable 1999 Jiji earthquake. The recurrence of so many disastrous earthquakes repeatedly demonstrates that the island of Taiwan remains an area of highly active crustal movement. Moreover, with rapid economic development, the population density in major metropolitan areas continues to rise, and high-rise buildings are everywhere, significantly increasing the threat of earthquakes to people's lives and property. Therefore, living in an environment under such severe earthquake threats, the application of earthquake technology in disaster prevention and mitigation is of paramount importance.

Earthquake monitoring and reporting is a crucial part of Taiwan's overall earthquake disaster prevention and mitigation efforts. Especially during the Chi-Chi earthquake, the close monitoring of felt earthquakes, the rapid dissemination of earthquake information, and the implementation of earthquake intelligence in disaster prevention all demonstrated their effectiveness in reducing earthquake disasters. The execution of earthquake monitoring and reporting relies on the widespread installation of seismic observation instruments to faithfully record vibration data from various locations when an earthquake occurs. Meanwhile, seismological research and applications also depend on the analysis and verification of data collected by the seismic observation network. In a broad sense, the seismic observation network includes not only various types of seismographs that can directly record ground motion signals, but also other earthquake-related research or operational observation networks, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) for studying earthquake precursors and groundwater level monitoring systems.

The earthquake early warning system is the core system used by the Central Weather Bureau to issue felt earthquake reports. In recent years, it has been successfully applied to the measurement and reporting of several disastrous earthquakes in Taiwan, such as the Chiayi Rueyli earthquake on July 17, 1998, the Chi-Chi earthquake on September 21, 1999, the Chiayi earthquake on October 22, 1999, the Hualien offshore earthquake on March 31, 2002, the Taitung Chenggong earthquake on December 10, 2003, the Taitung earthquake on April 1, 2006, and the Hengchun earthquake on December 26, 2006), rapidly providing disaster prevention and relief agencies with earthquake parameters and strong ground motion information, effectively reducing the impact caused by earthquakes.

BXB Electronics is currently a partner of the Seismological Center of the Central Weather Bureau in developing the earthquake early warning system. We strongly agree with the campus earthquake disaster mitigation philosophy of the Seismological Center of the Central Weather Bureau, and have therefore fully developed the automatic earthquake early warning system. Given that the system has gradually taken shape, and in order to allow more members of the public to be protected by real-time earthquake early warnings, we have expanded the earthquake early warning from campuses to mobile apps. Currently, both Android and iOS versions have been fully released, and the general public can download and use the public beta for free.

The national disaster prevention system has just begun deployment. The currently provided version is only for use in the Taiwan region. It is expected that there will be many unknown issues that need improvement. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to advise us.