Abstract
The Mexican Seismic Alert System (SASMEX) comprises the Seismic Alert System of Mexico City (SAS), in continuous operation since 1991, and the Seismic Alert System of Oaxaca City (SASO) that started its services in 2003. The SAS generates automatic broadcasts of Public and Preventive Alert Signals to the cities of Mexico, Toluca, Acapulco and Chilpancingo, and SASO by now only to Oaxaca City. Historically in Mexico City, due to their great distance to the coast of Guerrero, the SAS has issued its Alert Signals with an opportunity average of 60 s. In Oaxaca City the SASO gives 30 s time opportunity, if the earthquake detected is occurring in the Oaxaca coast region, or less time, if the seismic event hits near this town. The paper reviews both systems, its performance characteristics and its recent test by the Ometepec M 7.4 earthquake of March 20, 2012.
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Acknowledgments
The authors deeply acknowledge the support received from the Mexico City Government Authorities since 1989, originally through its Secretaría de Obras y Servicios, Comité Directivo del Sistema de Alerta Sísmica, the Coordinación General, Secetaría de Educación, Instituto Local de Infraestructura Física Educativa and Secretaría de Protección Civil de la Ciudad de México, who have decided to apply this technological development, proposed after our 1985 earthquake disaster experience, with the aim to mitigate the seismic vulnerability in the metropolitan population of the Mexico City valley. We are also grateful to Autoridad del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México, by its valuable sponsorship required to install the radio transmitters system used to disclose via low-cost receivers of the EAS-SAME-Public Alert system the warnings issued by the SAS system. We would also like to thank the Secretaría de Educación Publica (Public Education Ministry), that supported the SAS experimental program since 1992 in some schools of Mexico City; the valuable support from the Asociación de Radiodifusores del Valle de México, that since 1993 broadcasts the automatic warnings issued by the SAS to the general public; and, the government of Oaxaca, that in 2002, through its Unidad Estatal de Proteccion Civil, promoted the SASO design and development. Finally but not less, to Teléfonos de México (TELMEX) and of Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) for their valuable infrastructure support that has expedited the installation and exploitation of these SAS and SASO resources. Finally we thank the Coordinadora Nacional de Proteccíón Civil, Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres (CENAPRED) and Secretaría de Seguridad Pública for its decision and support to coordinate several activities such as to use their telecommunications infrastructure as redundant via to guarantee the SASMEX critical information.
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Cuéllar, A. et al. (2014). The Mexican Seismic Alert System (SASMEX): Its Alert Signals, Broadcast Results and Performance During the M 7.4 Punta Maldonado Earthquake of March 20th, 2012. In: Wenzel, F., Zschau, J. (eds) Early Warning for Geological Disasters. Advanced Technologies in Earth Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12233-0_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12233-0_4
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