Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) conducted a second tsunami mock exercise, this time on the west coast of India including the Lakshwadeep Islands, by simulating an earthquake of an magnitude of 9 off the Makran Trench off the Iran coast on the Arabian Sea at 11.30 a.m. on Wednesday.
Tsunami wave heights of around 0.5 - 2.2 metres height were simulated from the numerical model with care taken not to inadvertently alarm the public during the mock exercise. About 15 ‘test’ bulletins were issued till 11.30 p.m. by the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) located at INCOIS here through email, fax, sms and on the official website.
Disaster management agencies in the states and union territories located on the west coast participated in the exercise in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), Ministry of Home Affairs, Navy, Coast Guard, and others.
“The exercise is to test operational lines of communications, review tsunami warning and emergency response standard operating procedures, and to promote emergency preparedness. These regular exercises are important for maintaining staff readiness for real events because tsunamis are infrequent but require rapid response when they occur,” said INCOIS Director T. Srinivasa Kumar.
Last week, on October 4, ITEWC- INCOIS held the first tsunami mock exercise on the East Coast by simulating an earthquake of 9 magnitude at the Andaman & Nicobar Islands with all the states, Union Territories as well as Tsunami service providers of Australia, India and Indonesia also participating with more than 42,000 vulnerable people of the coastal communities evacuated. The nine bulletins were disseminated to the Indian Ocean Rim countries.
The responses by various agencies to the twin mock exercises conducted on both the coasts are to be collected and evaluated for the disaster management departments to bridge any gaps found, said an official release.
