Response of the Mexican National Seismological Service to Significant Earthquakes, under Normal and COVID-19 Pandemic Circumstances

Mexico is a seismically active country Earthquakes with magnitudes larger than 7 0 happen, on average, every other year This fact requires a rapid and consistent response from the national monitoring agency, the Servicio Sismologico Nacional, SSN (Mexican National Seismological Service) For this purpose, in 2014, the SSN created a set of procedures for the daily operations and rapid response called “Protocolo de Respuesta Inmediata ante Sismos Amenazantes” (PRISA, protocol of immediate response to threatening earthquakes) This protocol has been triggered for 292 events with a magnitude larger than or equal to 5 0 that occurred between April 2014 and July 2020 Here we present the response of the SSN, based on this protocol, to three significant earthquakes: the 8 and 19 September 2017 events (Mw 8 2 and 7 1, respectively) and the 23 June 2020 (Mw 7 4) The first two quakes caused severe damage in southern and central Mexico, whereas the third occurred during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and confinement in Mexico Having PRISA in place contributed to the efficient SSN response in the three events, even though some activities for the 2020 earthquake were performed remotely © Seismological Society of America