Earthquake And Android

I live in Kathmandu and it is one of the dangerous city in terms of earthquake. Mother nature reminded us this fact yesterday with 6.8 Richter scale earthquake with epicenter in Sikkim, India (281 km). There was few casualties and damage.

While I'd always want to get an earthquake alarm like this, its somewhat out of my budget. They have numerous advantages from detecting earthquake before few seconds to auto shutdown of alarm. You can check the page yourself for the complete set off features.

Here I will share a couple of Android apps that I reckon will be useful in case of earthquake.

Vibration Meter by Smart Tools co

Vibrometer uses the phone sensors to measure phone's vibration or the earthquake, and shows a reference.

I did some testing by putting the phone on flat desk and simulating earthquake by shaking the desk. With right calibration the app was quite impressive. But unfortunately alarm feature was available only with pro version.
Android Market link.

Earthquake! by Reto Meier

Retro Meier is the author of famous Professional Android Application Development book series. And this app is from him. This app shows you the last earthquake in 24 hours with map, damage and rumble areas. This also supports push notification and widgets.

Android market link.

While both of the apps are great in their own way, neither satisfy my concrete need, nor can I find any thing that suits my following requirement:

1. Should be free (C'mon we're talking about saving lives here)
2. When I hit start it should start monitoring in background
3. Upon reaching the threshold, an alarm should start

If you like any other apps please share in comments.