For those who may not know, Stuart was at the controls on December 26, 2004 when the great earthquake that caused the tsunami occurred. I visited PTWC a few weeks later and met Stuart and his colleague Barry Hirshorn leading to my first piece on early warning, post-tsunami. Despite all the controversies that were swirling around, Stuart and his colleagues were incredibly forthcoming and open, even agreeing to give evidence via a video link for the useless Presidential Commission on the Tsunami. Being the practical man he is, Stuart installed some new software at the Met Department that will help them make better use of ocean level information sent by the World Meteorological Organization and has also drafted some recommendations for the Sri Lanka authorities on how to improve their processes.

Thanks to Lakshaman and Stuart for their public-spiritedness. The CSR cooperation with Vanguard continues.

The important thing is to think about warning as a chain with many links. If one link breaks, the chain breaks. The conclusions are that one must minimize the number of links and ensure that each is link is robust. It appears from the story that a link in the Galle district failed. Why can we not directly connect the Met Department which has been given authority to issue warnings directly to the towers using a robust technology such as WorldSpace addressable satellite radio that does not even require mains power?

Is not foolhardy to install more towers before the operation of the existing towers has been remedied?
:: Daily Mirror – Features ::

Thousands of people living in the Hikkaduwa area which was of the worst affected area in the south heaved a sigh of relief when a Tsunami Early Warning Tower was installed on the Hikkaduwa beach.

The residents of several other surrounding villages in the area including Kahawa Akurala , Telwatta, Peraliya, Seenigama, Thotagamuwa and Dodanduwa , the business community and the owners of tourist hotels praised the Minister of Disaster Management and Human rights, Mr. Mahinda Samarasinghe for providing a disaster warning system to the area. The Korean Government funded the project costing US dollars 2000 and provided the technical expertise. Similar Early Warning Towers beaming alarm signals to an extent of 4 kilometres were installed at Kalmunai in Ampara the district and at Point Pedro in the Jaffna district.

The Minister and the disaster management experts from Sri Lanka and Korea guaranteed the smooth functioning of the disaster Warning Towers on the day of commissioning which was celebrated in a grand way. However it is a matter of serious concern that the Hikkaduwa Tsunami Early Warning Tower failed on the eventful day when the area faced a threat of a possible tsunami in the aftermath of an earthquake in the sea off the Sumatra islands.

Powered by ScribeFire.

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.

The prediction of a tsunami is an inexact art that must be practiced in conditions of highly imperfect information and time pressure. In the Pacific Basin, which has had the most experience with tsunamis, 75 per cent of all warnings are false. But this does not cause major harm because the false warnings are contained within the official system and do not get through to the general population for the most part.

Tsunamis are rapid-onset hazards. It took 90 minutes for the 2004 India Ocean tsunami to reach the Arugam Bay-Panama coast in Eastern Sri Lanka. In September 2007, the earthquake occurred at 1110 UTC or 4:40 PM Sri Lanka time. Tsunami Bulletin 001 issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at 1124 UTC (4: 54 PM Sri Lanka time) projected arrival times of over three hours, with the shortest being to Devundara (3:37 hours after the earthquake, at 8:13 PM Sri Lanka time) and the longest being to Jaffna (5:15 hours). Colombo, which was marginally affected even in 2004, was projected to be made contact with at 8:45 PM Sri Lanka time (4:05 hours after the quake). This was because the origin was well to the south of the northern tip of Sumatra where the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami originated and because the earthquake was 10 times weaker than that in 2004.

As much as possible of the limited time must be allocated to (a) decision making by authorized persons at the national level about the issuance of watch, warning or evacuation messages; and (b) decision making and action at the level of communities, including evacuation if appropriate. This means that the time taken to communicate the watch/warning/evacuation messages must be minimized.

This does not mean, however, that evacuation orders should be given as quickly as possible. Ideally, such strong measures will be targeted, for example to the Matara district which was foreseen to be the first point of contact. Even there, closing roads would be done as close to 8 PM as possible, because people need the roads and public transport to effect an orderly evacuation.

Decision-making at the national level

As stated above, the issuance of tsunami watch/warning/evacuation messages is an inexact art, based on imperfect information. Given the massive costs associated with evacuation orders (not only in terms of lost productivity but also in terms of deaths, injuries and other negative outcomes that can be caused), government must be the sole authority. Given the certainty of blame if a tsunami does hit and an evacuation order had not been issued, there is likely to be a bias toward over-use of warnings and evacuation orders especially in a culture that does not value economic activity highly.

It is important that procedures be established not only to make considered but quick decisions about watch/warning/evacuation messages, but also to counter balance the bias toward excessive use of warnings and evacuation orders. This includes clear decision rules and assignment of responsibilities. A multi-stage and multi-party decision process (for example having one center for hazard detection and monitoring (Sri Lanka Meteorological Department) and another for public warning (Disaster Management Center) may not be the best way to improve decision making and minimize time.

When time is short and ambiguity can be deadly, it is best to stick to prepared texts and formats. Standard message templates in all three official languages preferably generated using the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) software have been recognized as a high priority by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights and the Disaster Management Center.

Communicating messages to first responders and media

It appears, from anecdotal evidence, that the tsunami hazard information center (Met Department) received large numbers of phone calls from the media when word got around that a potentially tsunamigenic earthquake had occurred on the Indian Ocean side of Indonesia. In many cases, senior officers who should have been communicating the scientific evidence to key decision makers at the DMC and the Ministry were being called directly.

This practice is problematic for two reasons:

1. It eats up the time that should be used for considered decision making on whether or not to issue national-level watch/warning/evacuation messages. Time spent on the phone is time not spent on analyzing or communicating the evidence to the relevant authorities;
2. The unstructured format of a journalist-initiated phone call can lead to misunderstanding. For example, some journalists may not know the difference between an alert and a warning. This format also does not leave a record in case there is a need to review it at a later time.

Expressing concern about talking to journalists in the aftermath of a tsunamigenic earthquake does not equate to a recommendation that no one should talk to the media. What is required are:

1. A reliable and fast method of communication (e-mail, fax, telex, or even a taped telephone voice message) with journalists in all three official languages. Messages should be sent to designated numbers and e-mail addresses, preferably using automated procedures.
2. Journalists who call the designated number (preferably in a hunting configuration that can handle multiple simultaneous calls) should be able to hear a taped message.
3. If journalists require additional information they should be able to call a designated spokesperson, whose sole responsibility is to talk to the media. All conversations should be taped.

The point is to give more information faster and in better formats. Shifting away from the current unstructured modes to a structured mode will allow this to be done. Involving journalists in the process of restructuring the communication system of the Met Department will help improve it and will also serve to educate journalists about it.

Multiple media such as fixed and mobile phones, SMS, fax and the Internet should be used. Redundancy improves reliability. Using CAP enabled media will help streamline the process and expedite the messages. Where character limitations exist, as in SMS, the short message can be used to direct the recipient to the place where the complete message can be obtained.

The LIRNEasia-Sarvodaya Last Mile HazInfo pilot project showed that the most efficacious method of communicating to first responders would be through addressable satellite radio sets plus GSM/CDMA phones. If the government wishes, these instruments can be temporarily loaned to government for trials as decided at a recent meeting convened by the Ministry and the DMC.

Decision making at the community level

The Sarvodaya-LIRNEasia community centered disaster risk reduction approach places greatest weight on decision marking and prior preparation and training at the community level. In this model, each Sarvodaya village will have an ICT guardian who can communicate bidirectionally with the Hazard Information Hub (HIH) of Sarvodaya. The objective of the next stage of work within Sarvodaya is to equip 1000 advanced villages belonging to Sarvodaya with the knowledge and training to devise and implement emergency response plans at the village level and to have the ability to communicate information to and from the HIH.

In this model, the community will be alert and ready to respond in the optimal way to any watch, warning or evacuation message issued by the government. The HIH will amplify the government’s message and prior training and preparation will enable to community to respond in the most productive manner to a government message. The objective of those working at the national levels and designing and operating the communication systems should be to give the community unambiguous information and the longest possible time to take appropriate action.

Community preparedness also helps the national-level decision makers. If they know that the community is prepared and capable of responding quickly and in an orderly manner to an evacuation order, they can delay the “strong measures” until absolutely necessary. It is when that confidence is lacking that there is a tendency to issue warnings and evacuation orders too early. It is perhaps because of this that Thailand did not join Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in issuing evacuation orders after the Bengkulu earthquake.

Minimizing the false

In the disaster risk-reduction field, false warnings are not seen as being a result of malice or incompetence. They are simply artefacts of the inexact art of predicting the onset of hazards. Professionals know this, but the general public does not. If they are subject to too many false warnings, the general public will not respond even to true warnings.

Now that we have gotten over the problem of issuing no warnings, we have to address the problem of reducing false warnings. Effective design of protocols at each stage of the warning chain and committed implementation combined with a passion of continuous improvement will help us reduce the false and realize the promise of early warning to save lives.

Rohan Samarajiva, Ph.D.
Project Director, Last Mile HazInfo Project &
Executive Director, LIRNEasia
13 September 2007

1. Does Sri Lanka have a single national multi-hazard warning center?
NO.
2. Do the existing patchwork of centers (in the case of tsunamis, both the Geological Survey and the Met Department have responsibility) have a congestion proof communication system to convey the warning to the police stations?
NO. But there is a pilot project that involves 4 SMS based early warning devices placed in police stations.
3. Do the police stations have plans to disseminate the information to the affected communities?
NOT KNOWN.
4. Is there a mechanism for police stations to verify the information that they receive?
NO.
5. Has Sri Lanka conducted a nationwide tsunami drill?
NO.

If Sri Lanka is indeed the best prepared, we in the Indian Ocean are in pretty bad shape. But UK journalism is in as bad a shape.

Independent Online Edition > Asia

Even now, says Unesco, only five of the projected 16 buoys, and only 27 of the planned 50 gauges, have been installed. Governments around the ocean have not yet agreed fully to share information on an approaching tsunami, and few have adequate ways of getting warnings out to the people most at risk.

The best-prepared country is Sri Lanka, one of those worst hit two years ago, which has a system of transmitting warnings through its police stations. And Thailand – which was criticised after the tsunami for failing to pass on warnings, allegedly because it feared damaging its tourist industry – has set up a national disaster-warning centre, built watch towers along its coast, and drawn up a community-based evacuation plan.

According to the 17 July timeline.ppt, the PTWC and the Japanese Center issued the first bulletin within 17 minutes of the earthquake. The Minister indicates that the entire country was fully prepared within 6 minutes of receiving that bulletin. This may possibly be a world record.

If we assume the 23 minutes was counted from the time the warning was received, the country was ready 40 minutes after the earthquake. Even that is extraordinary. The Sri Lankan official who was interviewed by the Associated Press does not seem to have been aware of this great achievement and simply talked about plans and sirens in religious establishments. It appears that the international press is badly informed or is maliciously supressing Sri Lanka’s achievements.

The Minister further stated ” all we need is 20 minutes to warn the people if they are in imminent danger since there are 15-20 disaster management officials in all coastal districts who are ready to evacuate the people.” The Times states that the disaster management personnel are mainly army, navy and air force officers who have undergone “vigorous training to evacuate people living on the coast to higher grounds which have now been identified.”
“The people in these areas too are trained to follow route maps to reach safety in case of a tsunami. Police in these areas have been given megaphones to help in the process.”

The Ministry has already received funds from UNESCAP to build three tsunami warning towers in the Eastern, Northern and Southern Provinces and hopes to build another 25 towers by December 26 [2006] to mark the second anniversary of the disaster, according to the Times.

To summarize:

• Sri Lanka only needs twenty minutes to act on a tsunami warning. It took precisely 23 minutes on 17 July 2006, but action is being taken to shave off 3 minutes from the response time.
• There are 15-20 disaster management officials in each coastal district, mainly from the forces, giving a total of 15 x 10 = 150 in all. [One assumes different arrangements are in place for Jaffna, Mulativu, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Trinco, Batticaloa, Ampara districts which are not fully under government control]
• They have identified the vulnerable populations and trained them.
• They have also identified the evacuation paths and the safe locations to move the people to.
• The Police, not the disaster management personnel, have been issued megaphones to assist in evacuations, suggesting close coordination between the Police and the disaster personnel.
• Funds have been received for three warning towers, one each for the Northern, Eastern and Southern provinces.
• Funds have not been received, but will be sought for 25 additional towers. Fund raising, procurment under government procedures and construction will be all completed within five months, giving a total of 28 operational warning towers along the coastline by 26 December 2006.

If all this is true, there is no question that Sri Lanka is the country that is best prepared for a tsunami. On this strength alone, the Disaster Minister should be nominated to a UN post, shortly after the inauguration of the 28 warning towers on 26 December 2006. We have no doubt he will be accepted with acclaim.

The Navy and the Police are being questioned on who knew what when.  It looks like the  Commission is pursuing an interesting line of investigation.  Truly surprising was the emptiness of the media desks and indeed the chairs set apart for the public at this public hearing.

To find out about public hearing times of the Presidential Commission please call: 011-2669193 Public hearings have been scheduled for July 19 and 22, 2005.