Investigation of a New Earthquake and Flood Alert System

Abstract

Earthquake is a type of natural disaster which is difficult to predict while flooding is one of the common natural disasters in South East Asia. The effect of these disasters varies from death to property damage. People who engage in their daily activities sometimes panic and are clueless on the current situation around them when disasters happen. At this critical time, information on the disaster needs to be conveyed correctly and effectively in the area of the disaster as well as the neighbouring vicinity. To address this concern, authors devised an intelligent disaster alert system for earthquake and floods. The system detects the level of water and earthquake by using ultrasonic sensor and accelerometer and when a disaster occurs, sends alert and images of the disaster to a defined Telegram account which is accessible to anyone who installs the application in their mobile phone or Personal Computer. This is controlled by an embedded controller, Raspberry Pi which decides on the alert message to be sent based on the level of danger. Evaluations were done on the success rate of message delivery within a defined distance range. In the tests conducted in close vicinity (less than 1km distance between sender and receiver) and more than 5km distance, results showed that message reception from the sender was received an average of less than 2 seconds for text alert and less than 13 seconds for the image.