Tag Archive for ‘Disaster Management Center’ at LIRNEasia

Tag Archive for 'Disaster Management Center'

No progress on dam safety in Sri Lanka

on September 23, 2007

A member of the Presidential Commission on the Tsunami has written an informative article on floods, dam breaches and the lack of warning about them. Twenty one years after Kantale, 2.5 years after the tsunami, 1.5 years after we handed over our extensive report on dam safety to the Disaster Management Center, more sensible writing on the subject. The analysis is done, the remedies known, now is the time for implementation.

To understand the following story better, it is useful to compare the budget for dam safety in Sri Lanka which is LKR 15 million a year or slightly over LKR 1.2 million a month with say the purchase price of a unregistered car (cannot buy one with the budget for dam safety for one month) or…

1 Comment
Tags: Dam Safety Unit, Disaster Management Center, Irrigation Department, Kantale Tank Dam, LKR, Presidential Commission on the Tsunami, Rs, Sri Lanka, unregistered car, USD.

Assessment of response to Bengkulu earthquake

Rohan Samarajiva

on September 14, 2007

It has been a practice at LIRNEasia to write an assessment of the responses to potentially tsunamigenic events in the region. We commented on Nias and Pangandaran. Now that the discussion on the response is starting, here is our take:

Lessons from the Sri Lanka tsunami warnings and evacuation of September 12-13, 2007

The tragedy of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was the absence of any official warning. The September 12th Bengkulu earthquake shows that this is unlikely to be the case in the future. We have seen that the new institutions created since the 2004 tsunami have the will and the capacity to act. What we must guard against now is indifference to warning; of populations that refuse to evacuate in the face of real danger.

…

3 Comments
Tags: addressable satellite radio sets, Arugam Bay-Panama coast, Bangladesh, Bengkulu, Colombo, communication systems, Disaster Management Center, earthquake, GSM/CDMA, India Ocean, Indian Ocean, Indonesia, Last Mile, Matara, Met Department, Mile HazInfo, Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, mobile phones, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Panama, Rohan Samarajiva, Sarvodaya, SMS, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Meteorological Department, taped telephone voice message, Thailand, tsunami.

The Role of Telecom Operators and Broadcasters in a National Public Warning System

Natasha Udu-Gama

on September 10, 2007

On Friday, September 7, 2007, the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights (MDMHR), with the support of LIRNEasia, held a meeting on “The Role of Telecom Operators and Broadcasters in a National Public Warning System” with a six of the eight major telecom operators, as well as several disaster management-related government agencies (NBRO, Irrigation Dept., Meteorology Dept., CCP, etc.), UNDP, and a few technical institutes.

Mr. P.D. Amarasinghe, Secretary of the MDMHR, opened the session by discussing the particular disaster role of each of the government agencies asked to attend. He acknowledged the government’s important role in disaster warning. The role of the Disaster Management Center (DMC) will be to disseminate warnings to first responders through various means – RANet, SMS, fax. First responders will…

2 Comments
Tags: Anjula Godakumbara, Dialog Telekom, Disaster Management Center, electronic media, encryption, Gamini Hettiarachchi, GSM, Human Rights, important technology, internal protocols, Last Mile, MicroImage, Ministry of Disaster Management, Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, National Council on Disaster Management, P.D. Amarasinghe, Rohan Samarajiva, SMS, Sri Lanka, U.W.L. Chandradasa, University of Moratuwa Research Lab, uses existing communication infrastructure, www.dialog.lk/dewn, Yala National Park.

Mapping disaster research

Rohan Samarajiva

on February 14, 2006

NSF EXPLORATORY WORKSHOP ON SENSOR BASED INFRASTRUCTURE FOR EARLY TSUNAMI DETECTION, Maui, Feb 9-10, 2006

What I learned during my visits to the Civil Defense Center and the Tsunami Museum in Hilo and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach in Hawai’i last January greatly contributed to the disaster communication research program undertaken by LIRNEasia in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Therefore, I welcomed the opportunity to step back and reflect on the research program a year later, also in Hawai’i.

The occasion was a workshop funded by the National Science Foundation of the US. It was organized by Louise Comfort, Daniel Mosse and Taieb Znati, all at the U of Pittsburgh. Louise is from Public Policy and has been working on disasters for…

3 Comments
Tags: Arthur C. Clarke Centre, Chip McCreery, Civil Defense Center, Daniel Mosse, deep-sea sensor devices, Disaster Management Center, early warning systems, Ewa Beach, GPS, India, Indian Ocean, Indonesia, Kenya, Louise Comfort, National Science Foundation, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Pittsburgh, public warning systems, Rhett Butler, sensor networks, sensor-based networks, separate systems, Sri Lanka, Taieb Znati, Tanzania, Thailand, Tsunami Museum, United States, Vanguard Foundation, Walter Mooney.

LIRNEasia