Remembering the Tsunami!! - The State Disaster Management System has come a long way in the last 20 years!!
When the people in Tamil Nadu and across Asia were counting the days for the New Year to begin, a Tsunami struck them!! The day and year when this happened was 26th December 2004 and today 20 years have gone since the Tsunami struck.
In 2004, when Tsunami came, the people were shocked as they dont get warning signals at that time. It is now brought out that the state disaster management system has come a long way in the last 20 years and it is now well equipped with swift early warning systems and evacuation plans etc.
Not many of us would know that after the Tsunami 2004 the TN government began working towards establishing effective early warning systems in all coastal villages. This was as per an official attached to the control room of the disaster management dept. He added that now there are as many as 437 such systems covering villages up to a radius of 3kms. Truth is that the residents could be addressed from the control room now.
For monitoring the Indian Ocean for earthquakes that could trigger Tsunamis, Hyderabad based INCOIS or Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services has a warning centre that operates 24 hours a day. The sensors present in the Ocean would alert the control room in just 10 minutes once a high magnitude earthquake occurs. In the next step, the state govt would be warned immediately for starting safety measures etc.
It is learnt that now after getting an alert from INCOIS the state government could evacuate the people within one hour. Two hours were taken by the Tsunami waves to reach the TN coasts in 2004 is known. Impact maps were prepared by the Hyderabad based INCOIS for the coastal villages for the sake of better precautionary measures. The distance waves could reach during a Tsunami can be marked by these maps. It is known that the Tsunami in 2004 was triggered by 9.1magnitude earthquake. The Tsunami waves in 2004 reached 700m in one part of the village and 1.5km in another part of the same village. It must be noted that the map has marked such distances for all villages.
On 5th November, a mock exercise was conducted in Velankanni belonging to Nagapattinam district and Vanagiri belonging to Mayiladuthrai district. In the mock exercises the TN govt managed to evacuate the villages within one hour. As a part of Tsunami ready recognition programme, these mock exercises were necessary.
