Tag Archive for ‘Last Mile’ at LIRNEasia

Tag Archive for 'Last Mile'

Special issue of SouthAsiaDisasters.net carries LIRNEasia contribution

on July 22, 2008

The special issue on “Community-based last-mile early warning system” carried on its back page the following contribution from Rohan Samarajiva (despite the title of the publication, it’s not possible to find this piece on the web, so what is pasted below is the pre-pub version:

Between a rock and a hard place

The tragedy of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was the absence of any official warning. The Bengkulu earthquake of 2007 September 12^th shows that this is unlikely to be repeated. What we must guard against now is indifference to warning; of populations that will refuse to evacuate in the face of real danger.

Tsunami prediction is an inexact art practiced in conditions of imperfect information and time pressure. In the Pacific Basin, which has had the most experience with tsunamis,…

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Tags: Community, India, Indian Ocean, Last Mile, LIRNE asia, Sri Lanka, The Bengkulu earthquake.

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.

…

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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…

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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.

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