Earthquakes are a fact of life for people living in earthquake prone countries, such as Japan or Mexico, which are normally situated on or lie close to the “Subduction Zones” of tectonic plates. The gradual plate convergence of the tectonic plates in these zones builds strain energy overtime and earthquakes occur when the accumulated energy is suddenly released. As imaginable, earthquakes present immediate hazards to safety, health and economic viability in modern industrial societies. Recent earthquakes highlighted the risks from such cataclysmic events, which affect everything from loss of life to economic growth.
Hence, the desire to mitigate the damages, and more importantly to minimise loss of human lives caused by earthquakes have lead to establishment of early warning systems that typically comprise vibration sensors such as accelerometers, computers and alarms to provide decisive, advanced warnings of those events.
However, such vibration sensors have limited applications and use of highly sophisticated and delicate components means that such sensors tend to be relatively expensive, if not prohibitive, for extensive geographical deployment to provide timely and accurate earthquake detection or other vibration detection.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vibration detector and method to address the problems of the prior art and/or to provide the public with a useful choice.