China builds world’s largest quake monitor

Chengdu Institute of Care-life (ICL), an organization that does earthquake studies in Chengdu, southwest China’s Sichuan province, has built the largest earthquake monitoring and early warning system in the world.The quake warning system covers a total area of 400,000 square kilometers, and is nearly 30,000 square kilometers larger than that in Japan, China News Service reports.The system, which values 160 million yuan ($US 25,7 million) and boasts 1213 monitoring instruments and stations scattered in eight cities and provinces including Gansu, Shaanxi, Sichuan and Yunnan, could provide earthquake-warning service to over 80 million people and relevant utilities and trains.Up to now, the system has monitored over 1,200 earthquakes and successfully warned a destructive earthquake in Yunnan on February 19 this year.“The system could issue earthquake warning within 7 seconds since the seismic waves has formed, which is 2 seconds earlier than that in Japan”, according to Wang Tun, head of the institute.In the moments leading up to an earthquake, even a few seconds can make a difference, seismologists say.According to the institute, the earthquake warning information can be issued via TV, computer, cell phone, microblog, and instant diagram of seismic intensity can be drawn out within one minute after the earthquake detected.