Google has been operating for years the power of its Android smartphones to detect and measure tens of thousands of earthquakes.
In a new newspaper Published in the journal ScienceResearchers from the research giant have described how they used motion sensors from its two billion dollars network of Android dollars between 2021 and 2024 to detect and alert earthquakes to users of almost 100 countries around the world.
Known as “Android Earthquake Alerts” (AEA), this early alert system used smartphones accelery to detect revealing vibrations when they occur and inform residents of earthquakes in their areas. With severity levels at two levels – The lowest “conscious alert” for larger earthquakes which send typical push notifications, and more “alert action alert” for moderate or extreme shakes which emits a noisy beep alarm which replaces “not disturbing” the parameters – Google boasts that it warned more than 11,000 earthquakes.
Although such a system has invariably saved lives, AEA is far from flawless.
In the case of deadly Turkey earthquakes in 2023, which made more than 55,000 lives and injured more than 100,000 people, the company now admits that it wrongly sent its levels of levels lower than hundreds of thousands of people – a massive failure during one of the deadliest natural disasters in recent history.
Both in the Science paper and in a statement BbcGoogle admitted that it had only sent 469 “action” alerts during the first of the two earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria in February 2023, and rather half a million people with the “Being Conscious” version, less the two warnings. Because the first earthquake occurred around 4:15 am, this quieter warning was probably invisible by sleeping people and who made the silence.
This gap seems to be the result of bad seismic readings of phones sensors. Initially, the system algorithms estimated that the first earthquake was between 4.5 and 4.9 on the moment of magnitude of the moment (MMS), but it was actually a much more serious 7.8. During the second earthquake, AEA also underestimated the magnitude, sending only 8,158 “action” alarms and nearly four million “be aware” alerts. (This poor quality algorithm, says the company, has since been updated.)
Until now, Deviated blame google for the failure of the system, even after the Bbc investigation AEA in the aftermath of earthquakes and found that it was seriously missing.
Although this kind of admission is better late than ever, it is always worrying that Google has taken more than two years to admit the failures of the system during Turkey earthquakes. With so many people who rely on the technological monolith for vital alerts, taking into account the failures of the AEA is essential – and this responsibility should have been much faster.
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