Tsunami Warning System Up and Running

SEWilco writes "UNESCO has announced that their Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System is up and running as scheduled. From the article: 'Twenty-six out of a possible 28 national tsunami information centers, capable of receiving and distributing tsunami advisories around the clock have been set up in Indian Ocean countries. The seismographic network has been improved, with 25 new stations being deployed and linked in real-time to analysis centers. There are also three Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) sensors. The Commission for the Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is also contributing data from seismographic stations."

Comments

Re:It's not a bad thing

[chanrobi]

Why? Just because a big tsunami hit recently doesn't mean the chances of it reoccuring are getting any smaller. A quick cursory search revealed this graphic that showed the amount of earthquakes > magnitude 5 per year is at least 1 all around the indian ocean. http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/density/eq_density.html

Re:A peace of war.

[brunokummel]

Well, I'm pretty sure I could write pages and pages listing the good things the cold war brought to the world, but i guess nobody would take the time to read them so im gonna list just a few: Communication sattelites, anti-flame clothing, orthodontic appliances, arterial measuring devices, Heart's pacemaker, smoke detectors, better airplanes engines, GPS, weather forecast, not to mention our good old internet...

Re:Good news!

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact the staff at the Pacific tsunami Warning Center delt with just this as the tsunami worked it way across the Indian Ocean. they did manage to warn Kenya in time. The local authorities there were able to take actions which resulted in there being but one death.

Re:Good news!

[spagetti_code]

Actually that is kinda what happened in NZ recently - kinda funny, but also pertinant.

The core is that an earthquate happened in the alutians earlier this year in the night. The early warning system went off - some govt official here look at it and decided the risk was too low, and ignored it.

Somehow information about the earthquake and "possible" wave was picked up by overseas press and reported as roughly a "tsunami is heading for the east coast of NZ".

Overseas people began calling NZers they knew on the east coast telling them to run for the hills. The locals did (at about 5:30am), grabbing their neighbours and dogs.

In the end the govt official was right - there was no tsunami. Be nice if they told someone.

Anyway, point is that calling someone *did* work. People overseas called NZ and the word spread *fast*. I don't know whether it was fast enough to be useful, but there's something in there thats useful. Dont call people here - broadcast the news on the internet and news. *Someone* listening will know people in the affected area and the mass phone calls will start.

Re:Good news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Japan has a massive early warning system for this. It takes less than a minute from the tremor until they have evactuation notices in the areas possibly effected.

Re:Great - but local challenges

[Selanit]

... a key challenge is to get the local processes in place to effectively utilize the early warning. Unfortunately some of the most vulnerable spots are far-flung areas with lack of resources and processes to handle effective evacuations etc.

I guarantee you that the people who are working on this system are aware of this and thinking about ways to address it. Broadly, there are two things that need to be done: advance prep, and getting the warning out.

Advance prep means:

1. Identify local leaders in each settlement. (Depends on size - mayor? elders? local police/firemen/etc?)
2. Get the local leaders to identify a rendezvous point, namely the local high ground. The monitoring stations should also keep a list of designated rendezvous points for each settlement.
3. Put a cache of emergency supplies at the rendezvous point, eg water, first-aid supplies, blankets. These can either be supplied locally or through aid organizations. Obviously this will have to be secured somehow - unsecured caches might get stolen. Preferably, entrust this to somebody who lives at the rendezvous point (or close to it) and make sure it's more profitable for them to keep the cache intact than sell it themselves. It'd be a good idea to check the cache periodically (refresh the water, replace old medical supplies, etc).
4. Announce the rendezvous point in advance - tell people where to go BEFORE it's a crisis. The local leaders should be involved in figuring out the best way to do this for their area - could range from walking around knocking on doors to a mail campaign, posters, requiring teachers to tell their students, whatever works locally. This should be repeated periodically. Actual drills may or may not be feasible, depending on the location.
5. Make sure each area has some way of getting the warning and passing it on. See next section.

One problem with this is that there may not BE a local spot suitable for a rendezvous. If you live on an atoll where the highest land is 2 meters above sea level, there's no high ground. In this case, it might be necessary to build something. Perhaps Engineers without Borders can build a bunker. Or maybe a completely alternate plan will have to be developed. It'll depend on the exact local circumstances.

When the tsunami is detected, it'll be a matter of issuing warnings to as many people as possible as fast as possible, with specific recommendations. For maximum effect, they'll need to use every channel of communication possible.

1. Radio. Radios are cheap, and radio stations can reach large areas fast, especially AM stations with high-powered transmitters. Shortwave has even better range, but comparatively few people listen to it or have a shortwave-capable radio. So the monitoring centers should maintain a list of radio stations that broadcast in coastal areas, with current contact information, so that they can contact them directly. One phone call to a radio station can reach thousands or even millions of listeners. In remote areas, it'd be a good idea to distribute radios, or possibly sell them cheap. Emergency models with built-in solar panels and hand cranks would be good for undeveloped regions.
2. Television. Any television stations in the affected areas can be just as powerful at getting warnings out as the radio, so they should be notified immediately as well.
3. Government. This particularly applies to heavily populated areas - the local authorities can get the word out and hopefully also help people get going.
4. Web pages. Passing the word to popular web pages for the local area (eg newspapers, etc) is another way. This is probably less effective than any of the previous methods since it depends on people looking at it at the right time. But if it gets the warning to even a few more people, it's probably worth it.

Lastly, there needs to be a message with specific recommendations. Namely: