Islands Business - WE SAY: Tsunami preparedness far from satisfactory

NOVEMBER 2009 ISSUE

‘Had the warnings reached well in advance, more people would have been able to head for higher grounds and the loss of lives could have been less than what it finally amounted to. This clearly shows that multiple technologies and message delivery systems need to be adopted in the disaster warning systems across
the islands and any possibility of error caused by human intervention needs to be removed’

Following the September tsunami that tragically snuffed out nearly 200 lives in the Samoas and Tonga, the region’s attention has once again been drawn to disaster preparedness, preventive measures and mitigation.
While no response to a natural disaster can ever be perfect, a finely tuned system comprising early warning technology, trained, alert and responsible personnel working round the clock, effective mass communication and a robust mitigation regimen can be crucial to saving lives.
This is especially so in the case of disasters like tsunamis, where there is invariably a considerable time interval between the triggering event—most commonly a deep undersea earthquake in excess of six or above on the richter scale—and the time it takes for the generated giant wave to reach a coastline. There are also telltale visual signs such as the abnormal retraction of the tide level before the arrival of the giant waves—about which people need to be better educated.
The Pacific disaster warning system has been vastly beefed up after the Boxing Day tsunami that took nearly 200,000 lives in a wide swathe of territory stretching thousands of kilometres of coastline from South-east Asia to the eastern seaboard of the Horn of Africa in 2005. The scale of that tragedy greatly heightened awareness among coastal and islands populations on the destructive potential of tsunamis and also spurred frenetic activity in the global geo-scientific community and within national governments to step up disaster warning systems and take steps to better coordinate their functioning.
The system has been put to the test a few times since the Boxing Day tsunami and as this magazine reported and commented following the 7.8 Richter temblor off the Tongan coast that generated a tsunami warning in May 2006—just two weeks prior to a planned mock tsunami preparedness exercise involving 30 Pacific countries—the result was far from satisfactory.
Fortunately on that occasion though, a destructive wave was not generated but chinks in the region’s tsunami preparedness armour were exposed all over—in New Zealand, Fiji, and the rest of the islands.
In New Zealand, it took close to an hour for Civil Defence—the coordinating agency in the event of disaster—to put out the message to people that the warning had been cancelled. That organisation came under severe criticism over the following days for its handling of the potential crisis, especially from the information dissemination angle. In Fiji, by the time the warning got out to the people, it had been scaled down to an alert.
But what happened in the meantime was that the global news media had picked up the warning and broadcast it widely leading people from all over to warn their friends and family living in New Zealand and Fiji over the phone, text and email about the impending disaster, thus causing widespread panic, especially in the absence of any official confirmation.
That incident exposed the failure of the concerned authorities’ chain of command in the crucial communications part of the disaster warning system. Existing mass communications and telecommunications infrastructure and services like radio, telephones and the mobile network could have been put to use far more effectively. It has been suggested that cell phones be used as the primary communications tool in the disaster warning system, given their proliferation and reach.

In the case of last September’s disaster, cell phones appear to have been widely used but reports from some countries like Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands said the system became overloaded with simultaneous messages and was jammed, rendering it ineffective for several hours. It was unsurprising that panic reigned.
But unfortunately in Samoa, where the tsunami struck in the wee hours of the morning, it was far too late when the warning messages got to the people. Some had less than two or three minutes to flee and these messages too came from alerts and shouts from other people—not any centralised, official warning system.
Had the warnings reached well in advance, more people would have been able to head for higher grounds and the loss of lives could have been less than what it finally amounted to. This clearly shows that multiple technologies and message delivery systems need to be adopted in the disaster warning systems across the islands and any possibility of error caused by human intervention needs to be removed.
One-time tested system that has proved extremely effective throughout the last century, albeit for disseminating warnings of impending man-made—not natural—disasters, could well be brought into use once again: the wailing siren. Loud wailing sirens were effectively used during wars throughout the past century to warn of impending air raids so that people could quickly head for bomb shelters to escape bombardment by enemy aircraft.
The advantages of a wailing siren are self-evident. It is all pervasive and would be heard by most people. Of course, they would need to be strategically placed in populous areas and triggered by an automated mechanism not dependent on a human operator. This is not hard to do in this day and age of networked telecommunications that could be linked directly to the central disaster system thousands of miles away with a control and over-riding mechanism vested in a responsible national or local authority for each island.
It is good to note that the wailing siren is being trialled in some countries and if proved effective, would be adopted as part of the disaster warning system. Yet, it cannot be the only one. Mass communication devices like radio, which is popular throughout the islands and of course mobile phones need to be roped in. But what is most important is time critical coordination that has to be done by well-trained and responsible personnel. That is the fulcrum on which the whole system can work.
While such warning systems would go a long way in getting people to safety on higher grounds well before the killer waves hit, they can do little for the people of islands and atolls that have no higher grounds – such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and even Tongatapu – that could be quite easily inundated by higher than normal waves.