From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System is a tsunami warning system set up to
provide warning to inhabitants of nations bordering the Indian Ocean of
approaching tsunamis. It was
agreed to in a United Nations conference held in
January 2005 in Kobe, Japan as an initial step towards an
International Early
Warning Programme. Nanometrics (Ottawa, Canada) and RESULTS
Marine Division (Chennai, India) delivered and successfully
installed 17 Seismic VSAT stations with 2 Central Recording Station
to provide the seismic event alert to the scientists through SMS
and E-mail automatically within 2 min.[1]
The system became active in late June 2006 following the
leadership of UNESCO. It
consists of 25 seismographic stations relaying information to 26
national tsunami information centers, as well as three deep-ocean
sensors[2].
However, UNESCO warned that further coordination between
governments and methods of relaying information from the centers to
the civilians at risk are required to make the system
effective.[3]
Its creation was prompted by the 2004 Indian Ocean
earthquake and resulting tsunami, which left some 230,000
people dead or missing. Many analysts claimed that the disaster
would have been mitigated if there had been an effective warning
system in place, citing the well-established Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning
Center, which operates in the Pacific Ocean.
People in some areas would have had more than adequate time to
seek safety if they were aware of the impending catastrophe. The
only way to effectively mitigate the impact of a tsunami is through
an early warning system.Other methods such as
tsunami walls only work for a percentage of waves, but a warning
system is effective for all waves originating outside a minimum
distance from the coastline.
In the immediate aftermath of the July 2006 Java earthquake,
the Indonesian government received tsunami warnings from the Hawaii
center and the Japan Meteorological Agency
but failed to relay the alert to its citizens. At least 23,000
people did evacuate the coast after the quake, either fearing a
tsunami or because their homes had been destroyed.
It has been suggested that in Muslim-dominated coastal areas, the loudspeakers
fitted to mosques could be
used to broadcast warnings.[4].
Notes and
references
- ^
Suk, Sarah, Did disaster forum achieve
anything?, crisscross.com, 23 January 2005
- ^
Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning
System up and running, UNESCOPRESS, 28 June 2006
- ^
Asia tsunami warning system
ready, BBC News, 28 June 2006
- ^
UN plans interim tsunami
warning system that could be running almost at once, UN News,
13 January 2005
Mobile SMS based warning
systems
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