Eight hundred earthquake early warning speakers will be installed in strategic areas across Tehran Province by the end of the next year (starts March 20), said Ahmad Sadeqi, head of Tehran’s Crisis Management Organization (CMO) office.
The public audio systems, connected to strong motion accelerographs, will alert citizens several seconds before the seismic waves hit. “After receiving the warning, a person may have a few seconds to a minute or a little more to take action,” Alef News Agency quoted him as saying.
The number of speakers will be increased to 4,000 over the next phases of the project.
The impact of a high magnitude earthquake on big cities like Tehran is expected to be tremendous. “The national CMO should focus greater attention on disaster management in the capital given its huge population of nearly 12 million and the fact that it straddles major fault lines,” Sadeqi said.
Unending Expansion
iodng People’s vulnerability to natural hazards in the province is growing due to the huge population influx and the seemingly unending construction projects in the overcrowded metropolis.
“Following the establishment of the disaster alert network we will start imparting information on what to do when they hear the warning sirens,” he said.
In August 2015, for the first time in the country, four strong motion accelerographs located in northern and northeastern parts of Tehran Province were inaugurated. They are stationed in Imamzadeh Hashem, Boomehen, Lar, and Davamand districts, in Tehran Province.
More recently, another strong motion accelerograph was installed on the Mosha-Fesham fault, on the northeastern flank.
“We were cooperating with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), and the Communication Regulatory Authority of Iran in the past three years to activate the accelerographs and set up the Earthquake Early Warning system in Tehran,” the official noted.
There are four major faults around Tehran; Mosha-Fesham, North Tehran fault and South and North Rey faults.
