If there is one clear lesson from the San Francisco disaster, it is that a lack of information is the most serious problem facing officials immediately after an earthquake.
It is sobering to realize that the collapsed structures that dominated TV screens last Tuesday were about 60 miles away from the earthquake's epicenter and, the day after, the public still had little information from closer-in cities such as Santa Cruz and Los Gatos. We just didn't know which areas were hardest hit.It is not uncommon for earthquakes to devastate isolated mountain towns in Italy and Peru and to cut off communications so effectively that public officials are unaware of the situation. Even in California, the extent and location of the most serious damage of the 1971 San Fernando earthquake was not known for hours, thereby delaying rescue attempts.
But in California, in 1989, there is no excuse for the information blackout that descended last Tuesday night. Seismologists have the capability of determining the location, size and expected aftershock and damage patterns of an earthquake while the ground is still shaking. By matching seismological data with topographic, geologic and demographic maps, scientists could quickly and accurately pinpoint the likely areas of greatest destruction.
Rescue workers could then focus their efforts on these locations, rather than waiting for information to dribble in from ham radio operators and the mass media.
In fact, seismologists at the California Institute of Technology are building in Southern California a network of digital seismometers connected to each other and to computers by telephone, and satellite links that rapidly process and distribute earthquake information.
Called Terrascope, when completed, perhaps in 1995, it would allow seismologists to rapidly diffuse information first to each other and then to public officials, media and citizens.
Obviously, these experiments cost money and, unfortunately, seismology is a grossly underfunded science. Yet instruments needed to understand earthquakes are the same sort of instruments that will benefit public officials. In this instance, there's no conflict between sound public policy and good basic science: The needs are the same.
A few prototype stations of Terrascope are being built with a $980,000 grant from the Whittier Foundation. The Southern California part will cost $4 million, and annual operating and research costs are about $2 million. A comparable statewide system could cost $15 million.
Earthquake prediction is still a distant dream, but new instruments provide a bonus. Conventional instruments are sensitive only to sudden jolts. Terrascope includes a satellite link that allows it to detect small gradual motions between earthquakes, including possible unfelt bumps just prior to earthquakes. It may be that predicting earthquakes is easy - we just haven't been looking, or been able to look, at the right kind of information.
There's much current interest in understanding planet Earth. The interior is the least understood part of our planet, and this is where the forces that produce mountains and earthquakes originate.
A large earthquake in California (Tuesday's was officially only "moderate" - 6.9 on the Richter scale) will affect the economy and defense posture of this country. We need to understand earthquakes better, and a modest investment in modern seismic instrumentation would not only help science but would provide valuable up-to-date data in the critical minutes following the next devastating earthquake.