But in Sri Lanka’s southern coastal village of Godawaya, a tsunami warning tower failed to emit a siren. Local fishermen who had stayed home to take part waited for a few hours and decided to go to work.

Later, officials manning the tower went around the village announcing a ”tsunami threat” through loudspeakers and calling on residents to quickly move to a Buddhist temple on higher ground. Women who were at home gathered at the temple.

Air Force SGT M.G.A. Nandana declared the drill was still a success since they an alternative warning method was found in case the warning tower failed.

Full story.

Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe says the government will establish a series of Tsunami warning towers throughout the country from next month.

Speaking at the main ceremony of the Tsunami tragedy and National Safety day held in Kandy this morning the Minister said three Tsunami warning towers have been established in various areas of the country.

The Minister said the government hopes to establish another 25 Tsunami warning towers along the coast around the country by next March and five emergency disaster centers by next January.

This is getting to be quite boring.   The same story about three towers and 25 to come repeated since July 2006.  Instead of writing a new post, I will simply link to an old one.  If you don’t like that, here’s the original post from 2006.

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.

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