How long does an earthquake last, according to the National Seismological Service (SSN)?
When we talk about the duration of an earthquake we can talk about many different concepts: One is the duration of the movement known to people, the other is the duration of the instrumental record (it can be several minutes ) and the other is the time the movement lasted. of the fault that caused the earthquake (which lasts a few seconds).
Seismometers are instruments that are very sensitive to the movement of the earth, this allows them to identify with great accuracy the very moment of the beginning of an earthquake, as well as its end. Man, unlike the seismometer, has no such developed understanding in this sense; in general he can only understand the worst part of the movement due to an earthquake. This means that if we put a person and a seismometer together to measure the duration of an earthquake, the person will report a much shorter time of movement than the seismometer will report, because the person only felt the worst. which is part of the movement of the seismometer. .earth, while the seismometer perceives even the smallest movements that occur precisely when an earthquake begins and when it ends. The difference between what people feel and what the instrument reports is huge.
On the other hand, the duration of an earthquake, instrumental and human perspective, varies from one place to another, and is not a fixed value. When an earthquake occurs, people living in different places do not feel it for the same amount of time and even those in the same place can experience it at different times. There are three main factors that intervene in the duration of the movement: The distance to the epicenter, the type of terrain and the type of construction where we are now.
