Project of Creation of an Earthquake Early Warning System for Armenia
After the destructive Spitak earthquake of 1988 it became clear that the level of seismic resistance of buildings and constructions in Armenia is significantly lower than the level of seismic hazard. With these conditions the creation of an Early Warning
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Project of Creation of an Earthquake Early Warning System for Armenia S.Yu
BALASSANIAN, ARTAK
H.
MARTIROSSYAN, VALERY
G.
ARZOUMANIAN
National Survey for Seismic Protection of the Republic of Armenia, Davidashen-Massiv-4, Yerevan, 375054, Armenia, E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
1 Introduction
487
Introduction
487
2 Historical Sources of Earthquakes Near Yerevan
487
3 The Evaluation of Seismic Hazard and Risk of the Building's Destruction of Yerevan 488 4 Motivation of the Possibility and Efficiency of the Creation of EWS 490 5 Technical Description of Early Warning System 493 6 Conclusions References
494 494
Abstract After the destructive Spitak earthquake of 1988 it became clear that the level of seismic resistance of buildings and constructions in Armenia is significantly lower than the level of seismic hazard. With these conditions the creation of an Early Warning System to warn the population of an earthquake with a magnitude M~S.O become an important element of the seismic risk mitigation in Armenia. The developed project includes the creation of such a system around Yerevan where about 40% of the population of the Republic is concentrated. Within the framework of this project the seismic hazard of Yerevan is analysed according to the data on statistics of the seismicity of the region and historical sources of destructive earthquakes around the capital of Armenia. Evaluation of seismic risk of destruction of buildings and constructions was also performed. The possibility and efficiency of the creation of an EWS to warn the population of Yerevan 3 to 8 s before arrival of a destructive seismic wave are described in this article.
At present investigations in the field of prediction of earthquakes show that there are no methods for the perfect forecasting of earthquakes in its classical meaning. However, the existing technology for seismic monitoring makes it possible to issue an EWS for an occurring earthquake. Such a system can provide warning of an earthquake from several to dozens of seconds before the arrival of the ground motions caused by the strong earthquakes. At present there are several such systems in operation world-wide from which the most well-known ones are successfully operated in Mexico and in Japan (Espinosa-Aranda 1996; Nakamura 1996). For example the EWS operating in Mexico from 1991 functioned during the earthquake of 1995 with magnitude M=7.3. The project on the creation of an EWS for the capital of Armenia - Yerevan is described in the presented article. In the first part of the article the data on the level of seismic hazards and risk for Yerevan are given and in the second part the possibility of creating an EWS is justified and analyses of optimal configurations of this system are also given.
2 Historical Sources of Earthquakes Near Yerevan Yerevan is situated in the north-east of the Ararat valley of the central part of the Armenian upland. This territory is one of the most seismoactive regions of Armenia. Destructive earthquakes date back as far as the 6th C
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