In 1987, the EMSC was appointed by the Council of Europe as the main organisation to provide the European Alert System under the Open Partial Agreement (OPA) on Major Hazards.

As an international, non-governmental and non-profit organisation, the EMSC also focuses on promoting seismological research within and beyond its community.

Therefore, they create a surge in the website traffic which can indicate that an earthquake just occurred, even before receiving data provided by national seismological institutes.

By identifying the geographical origin of the website's visitors, the area where the earthquake was felt is mapped within a couple of minutes of its occurrence.

Consequently, by involving the citizens in the response, the EMSC paves the way for an efficient strategy to raise seismic risk awareness.