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New Indian Ocean Warning System Sounds Alert for Tsunamis
The tsunami that struck the Indian Ocean region in December 2004 caught hundreds of thousands of people off guard and cost them their lives. Within months, work began on a multinational warning system designed to relay reports of an undersea earthquake-and potential tsunami-to country officials who can pass the warning on to everyone in the storm's expected path.
The two-year, $16.6 million U.S. Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (IOTWS) program is being implemented by a USAID-led consortium of five U.S. government agencies in support of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), part of the United Nations, which leads the international effort. More than 100 U.S.-funded experts and scientists worked on the project.
With many critical components in place by 2007, the system has already been put to use. When an 8.2-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, on September 12, sensors provided information within seconds, and international tsunami bulletins were issued minutes after the earthquake. National warning systems sprang into action, analyzing data and risk, issuing warnings, and-just as important- cancelling them. Local communities responded by remaining alert or evacuating, depending on the assessed level of risk.
The plan was to design an "end-to-end" tsunami and multi-hazard warning system for the 28 countries in the Indian Ocean region. That meant that the system needed to take into account everything from the initial detection of an earthquake and tsunami at sea, to the processing of data, the dissemination of warning information, and the preparation of local communities for rapid response.
The United States provided the initial design for the regional warning system and provided critical equipment, including coastal sea-level gauges, seismic stations, enhanced communications systems, and two deep-ocean tsunami detectors, known as "tsunameters" or DART (Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) buoys.
U.S. experts also assisted in setting up national disaster warning centers in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, and they provided training to government specialists. Tens of thousands of people have participated in disaster training sessions, evacuation drills, and other community-focused interventions as part of USAID's efforts to increase community resilience in tsunamivulnerable areas.