Tweets being used to gauge earthquakes
Tweets are being used by the US Geological Survey (USGS) to get instant public reaction to earthquakes.
The USGS are using peoples’ tweets to identify what people in different locations felt during a tremor, if there was a lot of shaking for example.
Typically there are large spikes in the number of tweets sent by Twitter following a quake; the USGS believe the emergency responders may find the information useful, in particular identifying the severity of a quake.
It is stressed however that this would be used as an additional tool and would only ever supplement the scientific reporting systems that are already in place to determine shake effects.
Dr Paul Earle explained to the BBC:
"Twitter messages start coming out in the seconds after an earthquake whereas, depending of the region, scientifically derived information can take 2-20 minutes. "
Sharing experiences is one of the first things tweeters are most keen to do following a quake. Example tweets that have been sent following a quake include:
- Wellingtonians - was that an earthquake or just a very big truck going past our building?
- That was a bigger earthquake the mirror shook in the bathroom and the floor moved ..... Scared :(
- Just had a Earthquake, biggest one ive ever seen, not huge, but enough to really shake our house and everything on my desk, good old NZ
Source: Nomensa