Category Archives: Disaster
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Preparedness saves lives
What we want to do next in our disaster work is to train the inhabitants of coastal villages and the staff of coastal hotels to develop and rehearse annually risk reduction plans. The Chile experience shows the value.
Still, Chile’s earthquake preparedness clearly saved lives. Laura Torres, 62, and her husband, Víctor Campos, 66, live [...]
SMS alerts for tsunamis, the Australian experience
Early warning does not happen every day. So when hazards occur, it is important that the experience is analyzed so that future responses can be enhanced. Here is a report on how warnings worked (or did not) on the Pacific Coast of Australia in relation to the tsunami generated by the Chilean earthquake [...]
Early warning: still hung up on sirens. Why not cell broadcasting?
It is disappointing to see sirens still being promoted despite the demonstrated problems. And I think Kogami was present at the HazInfo dissemination event we held in Jakarta.
Patra Rina Dewi, director of the Tsunami Alert Community (Kogami), a nongovernmental organisation working on disaster mitigation training for communities, said the knowledge people most need is [...]
M-donations to Haiti: Will this be permitted in most countries?
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami showed, among other things, the power of the Internet to raise money. Now Haiti is showing the power of the mobile to raise donations for earthquake relief.
Old-fashioned television telethons can stretch on for hours. But the latest charity appeal is short enough for Twitter: “Text HAITI to [...]
5th anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
The tsunami occurred within three months of LIRNEasia’s founding. We were lucky. No one in LIRNEasia was directly affected, though there were several “what ifs”. It changed our research program for sure. We did three projects directly connected to the tsunami: NEWS:SL which was a study on how Sri Lanka [...]
Tsunami coverage that includes mentions of LIRNEasia
The pictures that keep coming up on the right-hand side of the blog are for the most part those of the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. So we are not allowed to forget. Not that we want to.
But anyway, Newsweek was the first to publish something with a quote [...]
Stuart Weinstein at government early warning offices
Lakshaman Bandaranayake of Vanguard Management, who worked with LIRNEasia closely in the post-tsunami period, was kind enough to arrange meetings for Stuart Weinstein of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center who attended the LIRNEasia@5 conference.
For those who may not know, Stuart was at the controls on December 26, 2004 when the great earthquake that [...]
A new disaster act may be a good way to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the tsunami
The following quote in a recent article by a Sri Lankan disaster management expert in the government newspaper caught my attention:
There was a time gap of nearly three hours between the time Indonesia was affected and the time that Sri Lanka was affected and also the coastline was hit by the wave at different [...]
Sri Lanka warning tower fails
It is asked in one of Sri Lanka’s aphorisms whether the sword that is not ready for war is to be used for cutting kos (jack fruit)? That is the same question we have to ask the Ministry of Disaster Management about its warning towers. When oh when, will the Ministry realize that [...]
Mobile Phones and Sharing Economies for sustaining last-mile early warning systems presented at Rutgers University
In developing countries such as Sri Lanka, when government has no resources to deliver the essential public good of early warnings, alternate methods must be advocated – that was the idea of the HazInfo research project, where civil society in villages were given training to respond appropriately to alerts received from the Hazard Information Hub [...]
Lessons of 2004 tsunami used in Samoa
A report on the response to the tsunami that hit Samoa shows that preparedness and evacuation planning saved lives even though they had barely eight minutes after the warning from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Countries like India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have enough distance from the unstable Sunda Trench and therefore are likely [...]
Maldives cell broadcasting research showcased in World Disasters Report 2009
CB [cell broadcasting] is an intrinsic feature of GSM, UMTS and IS 95 CDMA networks, and is thus available in the two Maldivian networks. But it must be activated. Most handsets are capable of receiving CB messages but the feature must be turned on. However, in the early stages, getting customers [...]
Sri Lanka humanitarian crisis and LIRNEasia
LIRNEasia is a regional think tank based in Sri Lanka. It works in 11 countries. In terms of its research, India occupies its energies more than its home base. However, LIRNEasia cannot be blind to what is going on around it. Several months ago, as the people held as human shields [...]
The science of earthquake (and therefore tsunami) prediction
Lots of people talk about predicting earthquakes. Here’s the science. Why should we be in interested in earthquake prediction? Because we live in a bad neighborhood: there has been a tsunamigenic earthquake every year, except 2008, since 2004 in the Sunda Trench. Until the prediction issue is resolved all [...]
Advances in modeling of long waves to help predict tsunami hazards
Impressive science is being produced as a result of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The focus now must be on creating systems within national governments that will allow the best use of science. Modeling data on projected tsunami arrival times (if any) were available to all on September 12, 2007. There is no [...]
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