The article describes a project proposed to determine the epicenter of a future short-focus earthquake tens of hours before and to reduce the magnitude of an impending catastrophic earthquake. It focuses on developing a physical model to determine the conditions necessary for the start of an earthquake, for a method based on the registration of flows of mercury vapor in the gas rising from the Earth. This model gives an explanation of why an earthquake precursor appears so early (such a long period of time can range from a few to hundreds of hours). Normally, the characteristic times of an earthquake precursor for seismic methods are tens of seconds. The project is based on the physical and mathematical models of an earthquake. The derived formula for the time of the precursor of a future earthquake allows us to explain and to describe the time increase for the precursor, depending on the magnitude of the earthquake. The method of reducing the magnitude of an impending catastrophic earthquake is based on the proposed physical model of the onset of an earthquake and is implemented by the action of a vibration source in the region of the detected earthquake epicenter. The proposed system should save citizens, lives from future short-focus earthquakes.