China: Earthquake monitoring network set

By Zhao Huanxin 

Early-warning stations will be built in key areas by 2020 to improve response.

An earthquake early response and warning system, consisting of about 15,000 observation stations, will cover the mainland by 2020, to facilitate disaster identification and the protection of people's lives, vital infrastructure and utilities.

Such stations will be spaced 13 kilometres apart in key monitoring areas that span 200 square kilometres in North China along the southeastern coast in northwestern Xinjiang and along the so-called North-South Seismic Belt that encircles most of Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan provinces, said Zheng Guoguang, the new administrator of the China Earthquake Administration.

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After a decade of preparation, a new national seismic hazard map went into use in June as part of setting mandatory national standards for safer structures, according to Zheng.

He said he expected that the Fifth Seismic Hazard Map of China will be implemented to the letter, in an effort to ramp up earthquake preparedness in cities as well as rural areas.