India develops the most modern tsunami alert system

Oct 16: India has recently developed its own Tsunami warning system and is considered as a great development, as Tsunami in the southern coastline is much more eminent after the Dec 2004 incident of the Indian Ocean.

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In the aftermath of 2006 disaster the Ministry of Earth Science in collaboration with Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) in Hyderabad is in constant effort to develop a National Early Warning System for Tsunami.

On Monday India’s Union Minister of Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal inaugurated the National Tsunami Early Warning System in Hyderabad. The system has been established with a cost of Rs 125 crore with efforts from Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Department of Space (DOS) who began working on this system after 2004 to measure tide or sea-level changes.

Like the Pacific Tsunami Warning System this system based in Hyderabad at the head quarter of INCOIS will be operating 24*7 and as per the technological point of view it will be able to provide earthquake Red alert within 13 minutes.

Scientists have also installed bottom pressure recorders (BPR) in costal region of Arabian Sea and also in Bay of Bengal to collect data of change in vibrational frequency, which is so far useful to measure any variation in ocean environment. The centre is also planning to install some other BPRs in appropriate position for calculating every sea level changes.

Though the effectiveness of the system is yet to be proved in many cases but some initial testing especially during the September 12 earthquake in Indonesia, scientists have already gave signals for its success in terms calculating magnitude, location and depth of an earthquake which can further produce a better scenario for a tsunami alert.

In India’s long costal region there are around 400 million people living at a risk of natural calamities. During the Dec 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami over 2 lakh people lost their lives including 16,000 people from India mostly in southern Tamil Nadu state and its Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Hence the importance of a Tsunami Alert System is very well understood for a timely and quick response to save lives of millions of people.