Internet Users as Seismic Sensors for Improved Earthquake Response

Many seismological centers now have Web sites that provide real‐time earthquake information. Webmasters who maintain these sites are aware that the daily rate of “hits” to, or views of, the sites' pages increases when an earthquake attracts public and/or media attention. However, many seismic network operators and webmasters may not be fully aware of how abrupt and rapid a hits surge might be following a felt earthquake as people visit the Web pages to find out information about what they have felt. Within 1 minute to a few minutes of an earthquake's occurrence, the European‐Mediterranean Seismological Centre's (EMSC) Web site (http://www.emsc‐csem.org) can detect the surge in hits (Figure 1). At EMSC, we have developed a system to use this information to discriminate felt events regardless of their magnitude, and to gather in situ information on an earthquake's effects within 10–20 minutes of its occurrence—at a time when any such information is critical to evaluating its impact.