Characterizing social response to urban earthquakes using cell-phone network data: the 2012 oaxaca earthquake

Abstract

The data generated by pervasive infrastructures, and specially cell-phone networks, has been used in the past to improve responses to emergency events such as natural disasters or disease outbreaks. However, very little work has focused on analyzing the social response to an urban earthquake as it takes place. In this paper we present a preliminary study of the social response using the information collected from a cell-phone network during the 2012 Oaxaca earthquake in Mexico. We focus our analysis on four urban environments located between 100-200km away from the epicenter of the earthquake. The social response is analyzed using four different variables: call volume, call duration, social activity and mobility. Initial results indicate a social response characterized by an increase in the number of calls, a decrease in call durations, a moderate increase in the number of people contacted by highly connected citizens and a moderate increase in the mobility.