Strong Motion monitoring Network in El Salvador

The first strong motion network in El Salvador was under the “Centro de Investigaciones Geotecnicas” (CIG), which belongs today to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. This consists of Kinemetrics analog instruments.

Another strong motion network is operated by “Geotermica Salvadorena” (GESAL) in a geothermal plant at Berlin, Department of Usulutan (using SSA-2 Kinemetric digital instruments). A new strong motion digital network deployed by the “Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas” (UCA) consists of ten Kinemetrics SSA-2 fitted with TCG-2 time-code generators. The main objective of the networks is to cover the seismicity from both the volcanic chain and the subduction zone.

A very good set of strong motion data resulted from the recent destructive earthquakes of January 13^th and February 13^th, 2001, in the near and far field, and it represents a very good complement for the existing strong motion data base in the Central America isthmus.

Recently, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is supporting a new strong motion network in the whole country, with the collaboration of the “Servicio Nacional de Estudios Territoriales” (SNET), within the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. The Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECI) has also donated new strong motion accelerographs for El Salvador.

The current strong motion network operators are SNET (taking over from CIG, wich no longer exists), GESAL and UCA. They have established a cooperative agreement to share all their accelerographic data.