Normally, the US Geological Survey (USGS)‘s system gets earthquake news around the globe first. Last year, USGS launched a new prototype system called Twitter Earthquake Dispatch (TED) that was designed to pick earthquake information the microblogging service – Twitter. The system is already doing wonders. TED dispatched the Philippines earthquake alert, that took place last week, just a minute after the incident took place.
On last Friday, August 31, the eastern coast of Philippines was hit by a 7.6-magnitude earthquake. The earthquake hit the east of Visayas islands at 80 mph speed at 12.47 pm. The incident destroyed roads and bridges, sent people fleeing to higher ground and triggered Tsunami warnings across the region.
Seconds within the earthquake sent waves through the land, netizens were up tweeting about the incident. Twitter Earthquake Dispatch (TED) system quickly picked up the trend and just minutes after earthquake it successfully dispatched an alert about the incident.
Paul Earle, a seismologist at TED told Bloomberg that just after one minute and seven seconds of the Philippines earthquake, their system began receiving tweets and issued a warning. The system, however, reported to have issued false warnings before. The USGS is working for further development of the TED prototype.
Source : Slashdot
Thanks To : Bloomberg
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