RUGON: A Community-Based Earthquake Observation and Rapid Response Platform for Thailand

The 28 March 2025 Mw 7.7 Myanmar earthquake showed that a large regional earthquake can produce extensive ground shaking throughout Thailand even though it occurred 1000 km away. This earthquake caused prolonged shaking of high-rise buildings and disruption of activities in major cities, emphasizing the need for rapid earthquake information to support community response. Although Thailand maintains national seismic monitoring networks, there has been no operational earthquake early warning (EEW) available to the public. This article presents RUGON (Real-time Ubiquitous Ground-shaking Observation Network), a community-based earthquake observation and rapid response platform designed to deliver timely ground-motion information by integrating distributed microelectromechanical systems accelerometers, edge computing, cloud processing, and web-based decision-support tools. The platform supports community notification, structural vibration monitoring, and real-time situational awareness during earthquake emergencies. Analysis of strong-motion records from the 28 March 2025 Myanmar earthquake shows that, if rapid detection and communication are implemented, a regional earthquake may provide more than one minute of available lead time for major Thai cities. Sensor performance was verified through laboratory calibration against laser Doppler vibrometer measurements. Field deployment during the 18 May 2026 ML 5.3 Myanmar earthquake successfully demonstrated the complete RUGON workflow, from sensing and communication to notification and visualization, under real earthquake conditions. RUGON is a rapid earthquake information and situational-awareness platform that reports observed ground motion in near-real time for rapid alert and response. It is not a substitute for a national EEW system. Nevertheless, because regional earthquakes affecting Thailand originate from distant sources, even peak-ground-acceleration-based observations without P-wave prediction still provide a usable interval for alert and response. Community-scale observations of strong shaking upstream can provide actionable information before it reaches distant communities.