As someone who lives in an earthquake prone area it's hard to explain the spooky feeling of receiving a message about an impending earthquake 2-3 seconds before it hits. To be honest it doesn't feel helpful. There's never enough time to react properly.
I've only ever experienced a big earthquake once, which was in Bangkok a couple of months ago. And if I had known it was an earthquake, I probably would've reacted differently. Not knowing what was happening, and genuinely thinking my building was about to collapse on top of me was one of the scariest feelings in my life.
It would, because then at least you know it's an earthquake, and you kind of know what to expect. Not know it was an earthquake, and wondering why your building is shaking and making so much noise, thinking you're about to die in some freak building collapse is pretty terrifying.
So the use cases like "get down from a ladder" aren't really likely to be achieved in real life? When I'm working on a ladder, I'm not going to be checking phone notifications anyway.
Yes. The 2 types of earthquake alerts each have a unique sound that was designed specifically for earthquake alerts. They are available in the supplemental data folder that's associated with the paper (you can also hear one of these by going into the android earthquake settings and clicking on the Demo feature).
