Firefighter's quake video goes viral

Roelard Smit, draftsman at the Fire Dept. in Groningen, acted on a hunch Friday afternoon, never expecting it would result in a nationwide hype. He created a stunningly graphic film about the increase in the number of earthquakes in the province of Groningen.He once saw a video at the Fire Dept. Amstelland, of the dispatch frequency. He wanted to try doing the same with the earthquakes in Groningen. time-lapse video
NOS
Dagblad van het Noorden The result is a time-lapse movie with the map of the province of Groningen. The movie is from 1986 to 2013 and shows a dot at the place where there was an earthquake. The more time passes, the more often and the more intensive the dots light up. The film makes clear how much the number of earthquakes has increased in the past two years. Smit remains calm despite the commotion. He was finished in 45 minutes, using data he collected from the KNMI. He first shared it with some colleagues and Twittered about it. He was surprised to learn his creation made it to news sites. Liesbeth van Tongeren, GroenLinks MP, asked for an emergency debate on the Groningen quakes. The MP also Tweeted about the good time-lapse movie of the earthquakes in Groningen, the result of a hunch, acted upon, just before Smit was about to start his weekend. The draftsman jokingly calls it his fifteen minutes of fame.