October 12: Tsunami alert system testing

This was announced by UNESCO said on Thursday. The test will start at 5 am in Mauritius.

According to a forecaster at the Mauritius Meteorological Station, “The main aim of this activity is to test an emergency plan in case of tsunami.” He added, “It will evaluate the system’s operational capacity and the efficiency of communications among the different actors.”

Exercise IOWAVE 11 will re-enact the seismic events of December 26, 2004, simulating a 9.2-magnitude quake that occurs northwest of Sumatra, sending waves across the Indian Ocean that strike the coast of South Africa 12 hours later.

“On that day we will receive messages from experts of tsunami threats and we will transmit them to concerned authorities such as hotels, the police and coast guards,” the forecaster added.

The exercise will help determine if information is correctly and rapidly sent by the meteorological station.

“We will also be able to see how efficient the authorities are in handling the situation,” he said. It will be a trial run for the newly-launched Regional Tsunami Service Providers, located in Australia, India and Indonesia, which will issue simulated “alerts”. They are part of a region-wide tsunami warning and mitigation service set up by 28 countries after the 2004 disaster, which claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives.

Until now, two bodies — the Japan Meteorological Agency and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre have been in charge of tsunami alerts in the Indian Ocean. They will finish this interim job by 2012-end, provided the handover goes well.

“The exercise aims to evaluate the system’s operational capacity, efficiency of communications among different actors and the state of preparation of national emergency services,” the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) said in a press release. The test will also include the evacuation of coastal communities in several countries, notably India and Malaysia.