It’s rare, but sometimes multi-billion dollar companies do something altruistic and clearly positive. Take Google’s earthquake alert system for Android. In 2020, the company began sending near-instant alerts of impending earthquakes to users on the West Coast of the United States. The system is now available in all 50 states and all U.S. territories.
Earthquake alerts use data distributed by the gyroscopic sensors of millions of Android phones to detect simultaneous vibrations, spot an earthquake in real time, and send an alert to all nearby phones if a level above 3 on the MMI scale is registered. Starting at 4.5, the “Act” alert becomes more intense. In the best case scenario, this should give people a few seconds to take shelter or get out of immediately dangerous situations.
In California, Oregon and Washington, where earthquakes are much more frequent, the system also sends alerts using the U.S. Geological Survey’s ShakeAlert system.
In addition to the United States, Alaska, and Hawaii, the system is now live in Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, among others. According to Google’s blog, the technology is already active in 97 other countries and territories, though Japan, Indonesia, and China are notably absent from the list.
