India, along
with 23 other Indian Ocean Nations, is participating in a major Indian ocean-wide
tsunami mock exercise (drill) on 4th & 5th September,
2018. The Exercise, known as IOWave18, is being organised by the
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, which coordinated
the setting up of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System
(IOTWMS) in the aftermath of the 26 December 2004 tsunami.
Today's IOWave18
Exercise comprised of a simulation of an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 in
the Makran Trench south of Iran at 1130 IST. The exercise is being conducted in
real time lasting for around 12 hours and ITEWC will issue 15 tsunami bulletins
in all, to both national and regional stakeholders through GTS, email, fax, SMS
as well as on website.
In India, IOWave18
is being coordinated by the Indian
National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Ministry of
Earth Sciences (MoES) with support from National Disaster Management Authority
(NDMA), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)
and the Coastal States/UTs.
In Today's
exercise three states from the western coast of India participated down to community
level with evacuations i.e. Maharashtra
( five districts ) , Gujarat (two districts) , Goa ( two districts) and Agatti in Lakshadweep Islands (where
officials alerted fishermen along with notable participation from marine and
coastal police) The end-to-end warning system from tsunami detection and
forecast, threat evaluation and alert formulation, alert dissemination to public and
their awareness and response was put to test during this exercise.
Major General
(Retd) Dr. V.K. Naik, Senior Consultant, NDMA acted as the observer for this
exercise and contacted the participating states down to community level to
verify their receipt of bulletins and responses.
Tomorrow on 5th
September '18 the exercise will continue with the second scenario simulating an
earthquake with the magnitude of 9.3 at Northern Sumatra, Indonesia at 0830 IST
. All eastern coastal states are expected to participate till community level.
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