Last mile is weak link in tsunami warning system
Last mile is weak link in tsunami warning system
A tsunami alert system is taking shape around the Indian Ocean seven months after gargantuan waves killed more than 230,000 people, but making sure warnings reach impoverished coastal villages remains problematic, experts said.
Indian Ocean nations agreed at the end of a three-day meeting in Perth on Friday to plant dozens of high-tech seabed sensors and buoys around the Indian Ocean that would more accurately and quickly detect a tsunami than what is available today.
The 100 delegates at the meeting also proposed setting up not just one but seven regional tsunami warning centers that would receive data from the ocean gauges, assess the risks, and warn 27 nations around the Indian Ocean rim.
"The establishment of seismic and sea-level networks for the Indian Ocean and an agreement on how to deploy those, I believe, is a significant step forward," said Neville Smith, vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System.
But the weak link in the system is the "last mile" when disaster management officials cascade the warnings down to remote villages, where mobile phones and even televisions are scarce.
"Countries are not paying sufficient attention to emergency procedures," said Patricio Bernal, head of the Paris-based Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, which is spearheading the Indian Ocean system. "Delivery of warnings to populations is an issue that needs to be addressed by disaster managers."
There were no warning systems at all when the strongest earthquake in at least 40 years triggered an unprecedented tsunami that is feared to have killed as many as 232,000 people in a dozen Indian Ocean nations and left more than a million homeless.
Countries have taken different routes since then to prepare vulnerable coastal communities for the next tsunami.
Thailand is setting up 15-meter warning towers along its southern resort beaches that broadcast warnings in six languages and it has staged evacuation drills.
Sri Lanka has rigged up a temporary, feeble warning system in a "model village" on the southern coast that is meant to be a prototype for a more extensive system.
Indonesia and Malaysia are relying for now on village mosques, which have powerful loudspeakers to call people to prayer, to broadcast warnings. India is using media alerts and will mobilize police and disaster officials to evacuate threatened communities.
The system of ocean buoys and sensors will be fully operational by next July when at least 20 of the DART (deep ocean assessment and reporting of tsunami) devices will be deployed.
Capable of detecting minute changes in water column pressure, they cost around US$300,000 each, have to be replaced every two years and are also expensive to maintain, Bernal said. -- Reuters