The Realization of an Earthquake Early Warning System for Schools and Its Performance during the 2019 ML 6.3 Hualien (Taiwan) Earthquake

This article discusses the earthquake early warning system (EEWS) for schools of the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering, Taiwan (NCREE's EEWS, earthquake early warning system [NEEWS]) that was recently completed. The system consists of 98 seismic stations with a complete set of system capabilities and 3514 broadcast stations with only the associated alert broadcast system capabilities. The broadcast stations receive both any on-site alerts issued by the seismic stations and any regional alerts issued by the Central Weather Bureau and then broadcast whatever alert is received earliest. Shortly after the establishment of the NEEWS, the M-L 6.3 Hualien earthquake, which had a maximum measured peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 515.17 Gal, struck Taiwan on 18 April 2019. During the earthquake, the performance of both the seismic stations and the broadcast stations of the system was documented. The current study analyzes and discusses the accuracy of the PGA predictions, lead times, and classification performance at both the seismic stations and the broadcast stations of the NEEWS. The results show that the NEEWS is a cost-effective and promising system of EEW.