We regularly receive enquiries from private individuals who notice tremors or vibrations in their home and want to uncover the reason behind it. In such cases, please first check the list of recent earthquakes on our website to see whether an earthquake could be the cause.
The SED does not rent or lend out seismic measuring equipment to private individuals for the purpose of recording or documenting perceived tremors or vibrations. However, there are some alternatives you can use to this end.
Although smartphones are less sensitive than seismometers, they can still reliably record larger ground movements when placed on a stable surface (e.g. on the floor). The free MyShake app, which was developed by the University of California, Berkeley, can take such measurements.
For more information, head to https://myshake.berkeley.edu/
Raspberry Shake sells inexpensive seismometers. The company has now built up a global network of around 2,500 such devices, the data from which can be viewed online.
In Switzerland, the SED has equipped over 40 schools with Raspberry Shake seismometers. These devices can reliably record earthquakes at both local and global level as well as other ground tremors.
To learn more, check out https://raspberryshake.org/
If you need professional assistance with your project, we advise contacting a specialist engineering firm in your area.
You can find a selection of such firms on the list of members on the website of the Swiss Society for Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics (SGEB): https://sgeb.ch/de/ueber-uns/mitgliedschaft/ (available in German and French)