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Focus
on Indian Ocean tsunami warning system The meeting will focus on the installation of a bottom pressure recorder (BPR), which will feed data to a surface buoy, which in turn will pass this data on to a monitoring station via satellite. "The IOC has already submitted a proposal for an Indian Ocean TEWS at a recent conference in Kobe, Japan" said National Aquatic and Research Agency chairman Dr. Kapila Perera. "We were not present at this conference so we cannot really give particulars, but we understand that a TEWS will be high on the Indo-IOC priority list," he said. NARA, being the Sri Lankan focal point of the IOC, has already initiated action to set up a local TEWS in Sri Lanka. The Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, the Meteorology Department, the Sri Lanka Navy and Air Force along with Sri Lanka Telecom are expected to be stakeholders in various capacities for this project. "The local TEWS project has to go hand in hand with the Indo-IOC project for it to be of any use," said Dr. Perera. "The local bodies will act upon the information delivered to them and help to get the warning out across the country. This is not something a single institution can handle and thus a number of organizations must work together for this to work," he said. Dr. Perera further said a coast-based TEWS would not work. "Installing a TEWS on the coasts of Sri Lanka would render it redundant as it will not provide a warning early enough. The best bet for Sri Lanka is to work with the Indo-IOC on the Indian Ocean TEWS project that has been proposed.We only need one 'tsunami buoy' with a bottom pressure recorder in one place in the Indian Ocean. This will be more than enough for the entire region," he said. How we react to the information passed on from this buoy will define our tsunami management efficiency in the future, he said. |
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