Peter Anderson who spent part of his sabbatical in Sri Lanka assisting with the conduct of simulations for the Last-Mile HazInfo Project is to develop a mobile communications command vehicle for immediate post-disaster coordination for the government of Sri Lanka. He first came to Sri Lanka in January 2005 to participate in the first expert forum on disaster early warning at the invitation of LIRNEasia. SFU News Online – Emergency communications vehicle will help Sri Lanka – January 10, 2008 Anderson is laying the groundwork for an advanced mobile emergency-communications (AMECom) vehicle for Sri Lanka’s disaster management program. The versatile, mobile communications vehicle will be similar to one he and his team designed and produced for emergencies in B.C.
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.