REPORTING OF EARTHQUAKE INFORMATION

 

REPORTING OF EARTHQUAKE INFORMATION

After a recent earthquake in Northern Mindanao, I received a forwarded message in my Viber app, notifying me that there was an earthquake down south. That message came from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) that is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. Perhaps it’s just me, or I may have missed a similar message from our own Philippine Institute of Vulcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS). Either way, it made m wonder how and why the USGS was able to send an earthquake alert seemingly ahead of the PHIVOLCS.

Although I did not receive an alert from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the ASEAN Earthquake Information Center (AEIC), I know for a fact that these two agencies have earthquake data that they could share with us. Could it be that both JMA and the AEIC might have shared that data already but we did not know about it?

It is public knowledge that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is funding some of our earthquake monitoring programs, and one of the conditions for that is for us to share our data with them. But is there a condition that would require Japan to share data with us? If so, we should be getting that data regularly from the JMA.

As a member of the ASEAN, we should also be getting earthquake data from the AEIC, but is that happening? Perhaps the PHIVOLCS needs the assistance of the DFA in getting the data from both the JMA and the AEIC? IKE SENERES/4-12-24

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