Earthquake in Sichuan leaves 3 dead, sees more than 70,000 evacuated

Chen Huizhong, a senior research fellow with the China Earthquake Administration's Institute of Geophysics, said that meant people in nearby areas could escape before seismic waves arrived.

After the Wenchuan quake, Wang, a postdoctoral fellow in theoretical physics at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, set up the Institute of Care-Life to research and develop the early warning system.

Since then, it has sent correct early warnings after 64 destructive quakes, including the magnitude 7 earthquake in Lushan, Sichuan, in 2013, the magnitude 6.5 earthquake in Ludian, Yunnan province, in 2014, and the magnitude 7 earthquake in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan, in 2017.

The institute's system, installed in 31 provincial-level regions. covers 2.2 million square kilometers and is the world's largest earthquake early warning network, he said.