Taiwan’s Hualien earthquake has heightened public awareness of safety, prompting high school senior Lin Ziyu to independently develop the “Taiwan Earthquake Alert” app, which has accumulated over a million downloads. However, it was found that the app utilized information from the Central Weather Bureau without authorization. The Central Weather Bureau announced today that they have established contact with Lin Ziyu’s father and can proceed with signing a contract through a guardian representative.
The earthquake of magnitude 7.2 struck Hualien, Taiwan on the 3rd of the month, followed by continuous aftershocks. Between the 22nd and 23rd, Hualien experienced hundreds of aftershocks, including two severe earthquakes measuring above magnitude 6 and dozens of aftershocks above magnitude 5, leading to the collapse of four buildings. Taiwanese citizens are concerned about earthquake-related information. Recently, Lin Ziyu, a high school senior at Kangqiao International School, developed the “Taiwan Earthquake Alert” app, which provides countdown warnings for earthquakes and has garnered over a million downloads.
During a recent media interview, Lin Ziyu mentioned that he was deeply impressed by a major earthquake he experienced in his childhood, which led him to constantly seek ways to be aware of earthquakes in advance. He utilized his spare time to self-learn coding online and watched tutorial videos. Whenever faced with problems, he sought assistance on online forums and spent one and a half years developing the “Taiwan Earthquake Alert” app.
Lin Ziyu expressed his surprise at the large number of downloads for something he learned from scratch and hopes to continue improving the app’s functionalities to enhance earthquake alert information.
The Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan issued a press release today clarifying that they have never expressed concerns from an unauthorized standpoint regarding Lin Ziyu, the developer of the “Taiwan Earthquake Alert” app. Instead, they welcome private involvement in disseminating early warning messages. Lin, based on his interest, used the “地牛Wake Up!” data to develop the new app. Following the earthquake on April 3rd in Hualien, he has been in contact with seismologists and the Weather Bureau, who have explained that earthquake information is provided free of charge and welcome creativity and cooperation from students to expand and strengthen services for the public.
In order to enhance efficiency in responding to earthquake disasters, the Weather Bureau has collaborated with various companies and individuals to provide earthquake information to the public “free of charge,” with “地牛Wake Up!” being one of the partners. Since 2013, the Weather Bureau has relied on the expertise and creativity of private entities to enhance disaster response capabilities, leading to the establishment of a cooperation agreement model. Initially focusing on corporate entities, individual cooperation agreements were also opened in 2022. Following the Hualien earthquake on April 3rd, the Weather Bureau has received expressions of high interest from numerous businesses or individuals for information cooperation, aiming to receive first-hand data.