Performance of the NCREE's on‐site warning system during the 5 February 2016 Mw 6.53 Meinong earthquake

• Published in: Geophysical research letters Vol. 43; no. 17; pp. 8954 - 8959
• Main Authors: Hsu, Ting‐Yu, Wang, Hsui‐Hsien, Lin, Pei‐Yang, Lin, Che‐Min, Kuo, Chun‐Hsiang, Wen, Kuo‐Liang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington John Wiley & Sons, Inc 16.09.2016; Wiley
• Subjects: Building damage; Buildings; Directivity; Early warning systems; Earthquake damage; Earthquake engineering; Earthquakes; Emergency communications systems; False alarms; Lead time; Meinong earthquake; NEEWS; on‐site earthquake early warning; Seismic activity; Seismic engineering
• ISSN: 0094-8276; 1944-8007
• DOI: 10.1002/2016GL069372

The National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering in Taiwan has developed an on‐site earthquake early warning system (NEEWS). The Meinong earthquake with a moment magnitude of 6.53 and a focal depth of 14.6 km occurred on 5 February 2016 in southern Taiwan. It caused 117 deaths, injured 551, caused the collapse of six buildings, and serious damage to 247 buildings. During the Meinong earthquake, the system performance of 16 NEEWS stations was recorded. Based on a preassigned peak ground acceleration (PGA) threshold to issue alarms at different stations, no false alarms or missed alarms were issued during the earthquake. About 4 s to 33 s of lead time were provided by the NEEWS depending on the epicenter distance. In addition, the directivity of the earthquake source characteristic and also possibly the site effects were observed in the diagram of the distribution of PGA difference between the predicted PGA and the measured PGA. Key Points The performance of the NEEWS in Taiwan during the 2016 Meinong earthquake which caused 117 deaths is illustrated The alarms were issued correctly without any false or missed alarms under a predesignated PGA threshold during the 2016 Meinong earthquake The earthquake source effect and site effect were observed in the diagram of the difference between the predicted PGA and the measured PGA