3 tsunami warning towers, 25 more to come (repeat story from 2006)


Posted on December 29, 2008  /  4 Comments

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.

4 Comments


  1. The effectiveness of a Tsunami towers( a warning device to be activated in wake of a disaster) need not depend on the number. If the disaster is originated locally ten the effectiveness of the towers is questionable.

    As to my understanding the connectivity mechanism between the Towers and the Command center should be redundant and separable from the common disaster effected domains.

    As a initial step…….It is best to establish Few Tsunami towers with Reliable and Redundant communication links, in selected areas. then the message can be distributed using other mechanisms.

  2. Why are warning towers more effective than cell broadcasts that can reach 10 million plus phones with no congestion? Or even radio and TV broadcasts, which unlike cell broadcasts depend on the sets being switched on at the time of the warning?

    The main point I was making was that these 25 towers have been promised since 2006 and not delivered. But the larger question is whether towers are needed at all.

  3. In a warning I believe it is the Medium which is important.Compare a Tsunami warning given by a Radio/Mobile to a Siren sound from a Tower. The tower definitely has more Impact.

    with TV/Radio/Mobile the act of issuing the warning is a secondary service,also none are dedicated to this purpose. But in a disaster a dedicated warning mechanism in definitely needed.

    So I believe Towers ARE needed BUT with many Design considerations in terms of Power and Communication.

  4. We have actually done field research on the pros and cons of different last-mile warning technologies. The reports may be of interest.