Every year, 12,000 to 14,000 e    1     happen around the world, killing tens of thousands of lives. So when scientists talk about monitoring（监测）earthquakes, every second counts. Recently, a new AI system d    2     by China is shortening the time it will take to detect（探测）earthquakes.

After an earthquake happens, most researchers can quickly release（发布）the time, p    3    , magnitude（震级）and depth of the earthquake. H    4    , they often don’t include the focal mechanism parameters（震源机制参数）, which can be used to predict（预测）the possible distribution（分布）of strong aftershocks（余震）.

“It t    5     three to 10 minutes for other countries to release the focal mechanism parameters, but by this time, the earthquake has fully happened and the h    6    has been done,” Zhu said. “This new system can p    7     the focal mechanism parameters in just one second and release the information before the aftershocks reach some areas.”

“If we are a    8     to receive the warning information three seconds earlier after an earthquake happens, we’ll be able to r    9     the wounded by 14 %. With 10 seconds earlier, the wounded can be reduced by 39%.” Zhu said.

This improvement is possible thanks to a deep learning method. The system is trained with millions of earthquake samples（样本）. It’s now t    10     in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.