India-led group hopeful of having global tsunami warning system

The India-led international working group spearheading the sharing of information between the tsunami warning centres across the globe, is confident of reaching an understanding on standardisation of communication methods among them in the next three-four years, said a senior government official.

India, which has been providing credible tsunami alert services for the Indian Ocean nations for the last seven years, expects coordination among nations would help remove the prevailing confusion in understanding the crucial data on tsunami early warning.

“Discussions are on. Such issues take time. For the Indian Ocean centre, it took five years to begin operations..this will also go for three-four years. But we are very hopeful. Globally, each centre should get ready and it may take time,” said Shailesh Nayak, secretary in the Ministry of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences.

In the aftermath of tsunami that impacted the Indian ocean countries badly in 2004, India had come up with an advanced early warning detection and relay centre by 2007 in Hyderabad. This is now being extensively used for examining the tectonic activity in the Andaman Islands and the Sumatra plate lying in the Indian Ocean and the Makran coast on the country's west. The Indian Ocean's littoral states are increasingly accessing the centre’s data to avert any possible disaster.

Speaking at a national workshop on Indian Tsunami Early Warning System: Progress, Challenges and Future Road Map at the Indian National Centre for Information Services (Incois) here, Nayak said the Centre was working on 3-D mapping of coastal areas that vulnerable to tsunami. The ministry is undertaking a pilot at Nagapattinam and Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu as part of this.  

“The 3-D technology mapping will help accurately mark the village and the human settlement that will be affected, by studying the rising waves,” Nayak, who earlier served as director of Incois, said.

Union minister for science and technology Harsh Vardhan told mediapersons the country's tsunami warning centre was the most potent in the world,  both technology-wise and in performance.

“Our system (tsunami warning) has been adjudged as the best in the world by UN bodies like Unesco and also the International Commission on Oceanography. Unlike some developed nations, which issue false alarm on the possible threat as a norm, we have never done so. In the last seven years, we haven’t issued any false alarm, which proves our strong credibility,” he said.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Science and Technology YS Chowdary said the ministry would strengthen the tsunami disaster management and responsiveness in the states.

The ministry is also considering to work with NGOs to establish tsunami volunteer teams to improve citizen knowledge and to utilise their services for rescue operations.