The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information System (INCOIS) has confirmed that, due to an advanced tsunami early warning system, India is more secure against the threat of tsunamis than it was in 2004.
The Indian Tsunami Early Warning System
The Indian Tsunami Early Warning System (ITEWS) was unveiled in 2007. It operates out of the headquarters of the INCOIS in Hyderabad. A unified effort by a number of different organisations including the Department of Space (DOS), Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Survey of India (SOI) and National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT).
The ITEWS consists of a real-time network of seismic stations and tide gauges. It also boasts a 24/7 operational tsunami warning centre. The principal task of the centre is to detect tsunamigenic earthquakes, keep track of tsunamis, and offer timely advisories to susceptible communities. Amazingly, Indian scientists can detect large undersea earthquakes in the Indian Ocean in real-time and provide a tsunami warning within 10-20 minutes of the earthquake’s occurrence. Back in 2004, India did not have any tsunami warning capability nor public knowledge about tsunamis in the Indian Ocean.
India was among the first few centres to introduce quantitative tsunami forecasts. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO accredited Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) as the Tsunami Service Provider (TSP) for 28 Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) countries, along with Indonesia and Australia in 2011, for issuing regional warnings.
Recent Focus in Tsunami Warning Capability
Recently, the focus has been on increasing community awareness and reaction through numerous capacity building activities, biennial Indian Ocean-wide tsunami drills, and the launch of the UNESCO-IOC Tsunami Ready initiative. Tsunami Ready is a community-led programme aimed at promoting tsunami preparedness through active cooperation of the public, community leaders, national and local emergency management agencies.
Venkatraipur in Ganjam district and Noliasahi in Jagatsinghpur district, two villages in Odisha, are now officially ‘Tsunami Ready’. INCOIS is establishing a network of 35 stations that will estimate the tectonic plate’s movements in real-time and measure the vertical displacements under the sea directly.
INCOIS
Founded in 1999 as an autonomous entity under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, INCOIS through Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) is the nodal agency responsible for disseminating tsunami advisories to India. INCOIS, alongside Disaster Management Officials (DMOs), is also carrying out the Tsunami Ready programme in India. It conducts IOWave Tsunami mock exercises biannually to improve readiness to handle emergency situations with stakeholders. Additionally, INCOIS identifies Potential Fishing Zones (PFZ) for the fishing community, and has made advancements in overcoming cloud cover via usage of geostationary satellites and numerical modelling.
INCOIS has also partnered with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Airports Authority of India (AAI) to develop NAVIC, a satellite-based message broadcasting service.
Tsunamis
Tsunamis are a sequence of waves generally generated by movement of the ocean floor. This motion can be caused by various types of geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. The behaviour of tsunami waves changes drastically depending on the depth of the water as their speed is related to the depth of the water. They most commonly occur in the Pacific, where dense oceanic plates slide under the lighter continental plates, causing a quick and efficient transfer of energy from the earth to the ocean when they fracture.
Way Forward
Initiatives such as Tsunami Ready need to be duplicated in other vulnerable coastal communities. This progarmme enhances their ability to respond to cyclones and storm surges too. Even the best warning systems could fail if communities are unprepared or are unable to understand official and natural tsunami warning signs, and if they cannot react appropriately or in good time.