Earthquake Felt Reports – Felt Detailed
Felt Detailed is an earthquake report which allows you to share your experience of an earthquake. It is a set of questions that include information on how the earthquake felt at your location, what your personal experience was, injuries or damage sustained, along with demographic questions and opportunity to add extra comments.
The report takes two to five minutes to complete. In most cases, if there are no injuries, damage or a tsunami evacuation, filling in the report will take less than two minutes.
Detailed information from individuals on their experience and reaction toward an earthquake, as well as any associated injuries and damage is important to enable scientists to continue their work to increase resilience and preparedness.
This data is then used by emergency managers, engineers, local and regional authorities and the scientific community to make informed decisions in preparation for future moderate-to-large earthquakes. It helps response activities and sets up appropriate evacuation and safety procedures. Your contribution is of immense value to New Zealand.
In addition, the macroseismic intensities analysed from Felt Detailed are being used by GNS seismologists to provide Shaking Layers intensity maps, where people act as ‘human sensors’, providing observations that can be used in addition to GeoNet’s strong-motion stations, to provide a realistic shaking distribution of the earthquake.
Felt report data is being rigorously analysed and filtered to be included as data in Shaking Layers, and only communities (i.e. suburbs or towns) with a minimum of three felt reports, are being used, ensuring overestimated or underestimated intensities are not included.
Completing a Felt Detailed report
The best way to contribute, is to complete a Felt Detailed report when you experience an earthquake. The Felt Detailed report can be found on the earthquake’s page on Geonet. Below are the basic steps with an example.
- Visit https://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake(external link)
- Select the earthquake you would like to fill in a Felt Detailed report for.
- On the earthquakes main page you will see a map with felt reports on the right-hand side, click Submit a Detailed Felt Report below.
- When you complete the report, you can view the shaking in the last 24 hours by clicking on the link provided.
- For earthquakes of magnitude 3.5 or above, you can also view the Shaking Layers map on the left-hand side of the earthquake’s main page. If there are felt reports for that event, these can be viewed by selecting the layer named Felt Detailed Reports.
- You can fill in a Felt Detailed report for either an earthquake you have felt, or for an earthquake that has occurred near you, but you haven’t felt.
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Can I fill in a report if I haven’t felt an earthquake near me?
Absolutely. You can also complete a report if you know an earthquake has happened near you but you haven’t felt it. This is very valuable information for seismologists, as they can they understand the extent of the shaking, or the effects of the topography or the type of soil.
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What about the cartoon felt reports?
Felt Detailed is in addition to Felt RAPID. The cartoon type of felt reports, called Felt RAPID, are a series of cartoons where the public chooses the cartoon that best describes their experience of the earthquake. It is available on GeoNet website and GeoNet app. It is an easy way to get quick responses on the earthquake’s shaking distribution.
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Who can I contact if I have any questions?
If you have questions about the research or would like to report any issues with the form, please contact info@geonet.org.nz
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How are you collecting this data?
This project has been peer reviewed by Massey University, and assessed as low risk. It has not been reviewed by the University’s Human Ethics Committees. The researchers are responsible for the ethical conduct of this research.
If you have concerns about the conduct of this research that you wish to raise independently of the researchers, please contact Professor Craig Johnson, Director (Research Ethics) at humanethics@massey.ac.nz
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Need to talk?
The geohazards we face here in New Zealand can be unsettling. If you would like support or advice, have feelings of anxiety, stress, prolonged fear, hopelessness or anger, or if you just need to talk with someone. Please text or phone 1737 to speak to a trained counsellor in the National Telehealth Service. Its free to call or text.