Coastal states should take Odisha as an example for achieving the “Tsunami ready” status as it had done to two villages - Venkatraipur and Noliasahi recently - becoming the first among all the Indian Ocean rim countries, suggested National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) member secretary G.V.S. Sharma on Thursday.
Participating in a webinar by the India National Centre for Oceanic Information System (INCOIS) on the occasion of ‘World Tsunami Awarness Day ’as designated by United Nations, Mr. Sharma said, “we cannot control the occurrence of an earthquake even with state-of-arts technologies. However, we can definitely mitigate the possible disaster by taking adequate measures by improving community awareness and preparedness, like people must be aware how to respond to them, either natural warning signs or official.”
INCOIS has been organizing many national and international workshops, trainings and seminars as also Indian Ocean-wide mock tsunami drill every year to test not only the communications from warning centre to its stakeholders, but also for testing national/state/local chains of command and decision-making, he said.
Tsunamis, though infrequent, are significant natural hazards that can cause great destruction and loss of life within minutes on shores near and far. The great Sumatra earthquake of 26th December, 2004, with magnitude 9.1, rated as the world’s third largest recorded earthquake. In India it claimed 10,749 lives according to official estimates.
Tremendous development has been observed after 2004 tsunami which made the warning centre not only capable as to provide services as national tsunami advisories but also as a Tsunami Service Provider (TSP) responsible for providing Tsunami advisories to all Indian Ocean member countries under the frame work of UNESCO’s Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWMS), said INCOIS director T. Srinivasa Kumar.
Japan had proposed the day in honor of a true story: “Inamura-no-hi”, which means the “burning of the rice sheaves”. A villager had noticed approaching tsunami resulted from major earthquake on 5 November 1854 and guided his fellow villagers to evacuate to higher ground by setting fire to his precious sheaves of rice, as a signal of warning. Odisha additional chief secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena also spoke, a press release said.
