Description of the follow-up feature of the LastQuake app

If another earthquake strikes the same area within a week, another safety check is launched, but only if the magnitude is larger than the first one. This is a mean to address the specificity of earthquakes mentioned above: replicas are not predictable but are likely to occur and can be damaging. Marking oneself safe can quickly be outdated by another earthquake a few minutes later. Thanks to a basic pre-written and editable text message, users can either send it quickly or take the time to personalize it and adapt it in a culturally suitable way. Following a suggestion by one of the users, GPS location can now be attached to the message. Figure 10. Screenshot of safety check message As the message will be sent by SMS, EMSC warns the users that it can cost them money depending on their country and mobile operator. The text message can be sent to a selection of contacts among the users’ list of contacts. They can be pre-selected by the user before the earthquake and modified at any time. Once the message is sent, the users are advised to look at the safety tips, in order to improve disaster response and resiliency. Following the preliminary analysis, the safety check monitoring system has also been improved. Each safety check message sent is now associated with a specific earthquake. EMSC also collects data on whether the safety message has been modified or not, and whether the GPS location was attached or not. Both safety tips and safety check features were developed and designed by taking culture and culture neutrality into account. This is of prior importance for EMSC as LastQuake is used by a wide range of people in the world. In order to evaluate these new tools, a monitoring system was implemented to understand the users’ adoption of these technological tools. All data were collected in compliance with the European legislation on data protection and privacy. Findings are presented in the next section.

Note: See source document for full reference.

Cultural Factors: Communication, Socio-economic status, Ethnicity, Social networks, Access and use of infrastructure/services

Hazards: Natural hazards

Disaster Phases: Response

Types of Actors Concerned: Non-active citizens, NGOs