Tsunami Alert Systems working efficiently
COLOMBO: A tsunami alert, last week, sent thousands of Sri
Lankans living along the coastal line fleeing inland, but authorities
were exultant that the early warning systems installed after the
disastrous December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami were working.
“The early warning systems worked perfectly,” said Dhammika
Wijeyasooriya, Deputy Director (emergency operations) at the National
Disaster Management Centre (DMC).
Minutes after Colombo was alerted of the quake in Sumatra, Indonesia,
the Meteorological Department and the DMC were in touch with disaster
warning centres and alerting the public in vulnerable areas.
But there is now a niggling feeling that the alert systems worked a
tad too well. Experts here have been raising questions as to whether the
September 12 quake, measuring 8.4 on the Richter scale, and followed by
a series of aftershocks the next day, merited a full-scale tsunami
alert.
“Scientists have determined that there appears to be no immediate
threat of an ocean-wide tsunami on this segment because such great
earthquakes are typically at least 400 years apart,” argued Duleep
Jayawardene, a retired geologist with the United Nations.
Jayawardene says there are no officials who can read seismic data. He
has urged the government to take immediate action to train seismologists
and geophysicists in interpreting seismic data to ensure that an
accurate assessment is made before residents are warned to leave their
homes.
The Government, he said, should review its decision to designate the
Meteorology Department as the focal point for tsunami and earthquake
warnings as the subject is complex and needs effective coordination and
scientific input.
Unlike Sri Lanka, the Thai National Disaster Warning Centre (NDWC)
did not issue a tsunami alert. News reports from Thailand said that the
NDWC, instead, made a broadcast three hours later telling people there
was no cause for alarm.
NDWC Chairman S. Dharmasarojana was quoted as saying that the delay
was based on a thorough analysis of the situation. He said the NDWC
decided against a sudden warning on TV about a possible tsunami because
it predicted that the quake would not cause giant waves in Thailand.
The NDWC broadcast three hours after the first quake was mainly aimed
at calming people down.
In Sri Lanka residents were alerted through various forms of
communication — TV, radio, three-wheeler scooter taxis carrying
loudspeakers, police riding jeeps and motorcycles, and even by residents
going door-to-door.
While people were told the quake was not bigger than the 2004 one,
they did not take chances and most people living close to the coastline
fled to higher ground with just the clothes they were wearing.
The reaction was understandable. More than 30,000 people died and a
million people were affected by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 that
devastated coastal Sri Lanka. Reconstruction work has still to be
completed in some areas even after nearly three years and for many
affected residents the 2004 tsunami is still fresh in their minds.
Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, executive director, ‘LIRNEasia’, a
non-governmental organisation which has been involved in disaster and
hazard management research, said initial reports indicated that the
meteorological department which acts as the tsunami hazard information
centre received numerous phone calls from journalists when word got out
about the Indonesian earthquake.
“In many cases, senior officers who should have been communicating
the scientific evidence to key decision-makers at the DMC and the
ministry were being called directly,” Samarajiva said, adding that this
created a problem as time spent on the phone (for these officers) is
time not spent on analysing or communicating the evidence to the
relevant authorities in the quickest possible time.
He said the unstructured format of a journalist-initiated phone call
can lead to misunderstanding. “For example, some journalists may not
know the difference between an alert and a warning. This format also
does not leave a record in case there is a need to review it at a later
time,” he said noting that this does not mean officials should not talk
to the media.
He said the best process is to develop a reliable and fast method of
communication (e-mail, fax, telex, or even a taped telephone voice
message) for journalists in all three official languages.
Messages should be sent to designated numbers and e-mail addresses,
preferably using automated procedures.
Wijeyasooriya said plans were afoot to install 50 ‘early’ warning
towers across the island where now only two exist. He said the towers
are lamp post-like structures with loudspeakers fixed at the top facing
different directions.
These towers can be operated from the DMC’s central operations desk
in Colombo. ‘’I can send a message or make an announcement directly from
Colombo,’’ he said. Authorities were also meeting on the weekend to
review the early warning systems and look at lessons learnt from the
latest experience.
Wijeyasooriya agreed that there is a need for a central system but
said that, in time, the DMC, set up after the 2004 tsunami, would be the
central body handling alerts, disasters and evacuation procedures.
He said the intensity of Wednesday’s quake was one-tenth of the 2004
quake, but believed that it was better to have alerted the people in the
absence of enough skills to assess the seismic data than take a risk.
“We need to be safe rather than sorry.”
(IPS) |