Mock Tsunami puts Indian Ocean states into a tizzy

India, along with 23 other Indian Ocean nations, is participating in a two-day mock tsunami management exercise from Tuesday.

Called IOWave18, the exercise is being organised by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, which coordinated the setting up of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWMS) after the devastating December 26, 2004 tsunami.

Day 1 comprised of simulation of an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 in the Makran Trench, south of Iran, at 11:30 IST. The exercise in real time lasts for around 12 hours and ITEWC will issue 15 tsunami bulletins in all, to both national and regional stakeholders through GTS, email, fax, SMS as well as on website.

In India, IOWave18 is being coordinated by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) with support from National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the coastal States/UTs.

Response tested

In Tuesday's exercise, three states from the western coast of India participated down to community level with evacuations i.e. Maharashtra (five districts), Gujarat (two districts), Goa (two districts) and Agatti in Lakshadweep Islands. The end-to-end warning system from tsunami detection and forecast, threat evaluation and alert formulation, alert dissemination to public and their awareness and response was put to test during this exercise.

Major General (Retd) Dr V K Naik, Senior Consultant, NDMA acted as the observer for this exercise and contacted the participants down to community level to verify their receipt of bulletins and responses.

On Wednesday the exercise will continue with the second scenario simulating an earthquake with the magnitude of 9.3 at Northern Sumatra, Indonesia at 08:30 IST. All eastern coastal states are expected to participate till community level.