India’s indigenously developed system will generate timely advisories about changes in sea levels after an earthquake, based on real-time calculations of data collected through sensors, tide gauges and bottom pressure recorders

India has launched its tsunami early-warning system that can locate the exact epicentre of an earthquake in the ocean within 13 minutes of its occurrence, and generate alerts within 30 minutes of the quake. The first country in the Indian Ocean region to have such a system, described as “most modern” by a UN expert on earthquakes, it has promised to share the benefits of this technology with its neighbours.

The national early-warning system for tsunami and storm surges in the Indian Ocean, developed by scientists at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) was inaugurated by the country’s Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Minister Kapil Sibal on October 15. “We had promised to put in place a tsunami warning system soon after the December 2004 tsunami devastated many coastal parts of the country. We deliver the system today,” Sibal said at the Early Warning Centre in Hyderabad.

The system comprises a real-time network of seismic stations, Bottom Pressure Recorders (BPRs) and tide gauges to monitor earthquakes in the sea and subsequent tsunamis triggered by them. The Early Warning Centre, based in Hyderabad, receives real-time seismic data from the national seismic network of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and other international seismic networks.

The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has installed four BPRs in the Bay of Bengal and two off the coast of Gujarat in the Arabian Sea, in addition to 30 tide gauges.

The early-warning system can detect all earthquakes of more than six degrees on the Richter scale that occur in the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean within minutes of their occurrence. BPRs installed in the sea/ocean are the key sensors confirming the triggering of a tsunami. Seismic and sea-level data is continuously monitored through a system that generates alerts in the warning centre whenever a pre-set threshold is crossed.

The Early Warning Centre will then generate and issue timely advisories to the control room of the ministry of home affairs for dissemination to the public. To warn the ministry, a satellite-based virtual private network for disaster management support has been established. This enables the centre to also issue alerts to state emergency operations centres. Messages will be sent by telephone, fax, SMS and emails to authorised officials.

In case of confirmed warnings, the Centre is being equipped to disseminate advisories directly to the administrators, media and public via SMS, email and fax.

The Early Warning Centre, developed by 150 scientists at INCOIS over the past three years, was established by the ministry of earth sciences at a cost of Rs 125 crore, in collaboration with the department of science and technology, department of space, and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. It has been praised by Peter Koltermann, head of tsunami coordination of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, who said: “The Indian system is the most modern one.”

The warning system was launched following the completion of successful trials. “The efficiency of the system was proved during an under-sea earthquake of 8.4 magnitude that occurred last month in the Indian Ocean. The team of Indian scientists calculated time, capacity and the right height of waves generated from the region. We had put Chennai and the Andaman and Nicobar regions on high alert,” said Sibal.

Nearly 400 million people living in India’s coastal belt are vulnerable to oceanographic disasters. In the wake of the devastating December 2004 tsunami, which killed 10,700 people in India and over 203,000 worldwide, the Indian government had promised to put in place an early-warning system by September 2007.

Source: The Asian Age, October 18, 2007
             DNA, October 16, 2007
             The Hindu, October 16, 2007
             The Hindustan Times, October 16, 2007
             www.bbcnews.com, October 15, 2007