humanitarian.info » The Long Last Mile Courtesy of Nuwan on the humanitarian-ict mailing list, I just watched “The Long Last Mile” on YouTube. Produced by Television for Education – Asia Pacific, it describes the project by LIRNEasia to evaluate Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination. Some useful points in an accessible format – redundancy in communication technologies, identification of key responders, community engagement in the process, the importance of simulation exercises for learning, and so on. Only 12 minutes long, it’s definitely worth watching.
AFP: Asia remembers tsunami victims three years on Also in Indonesia, a dramatic drill simulating a tsunami strike was held in Java’s coastal province of Banten involving around 9,000 residents, local television reported. The simulation, designed to test a tsunami warning system gradually being rolled out, saw hundreds of students, along with residents clutching children, rush to higher ground assailed by wailing sirens. “This country is vulnerable to tsunami threats. Let us pray to God for this country to be kept safe from tsunamis,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after observing the exercise. Powered by ScribeFire.
On October 25, 2007, LIRNEasia’s Rohan Samarajiva, Nuwan Waidyanatha and Natasha Udu-gama traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh to present findings from the “Evaluating Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination” (HazInfo) pilot project in the first international dissemination workshop for HazInfo entitled “Sharing Knowledge on Disaster Warning: Community-Based Last-Mile Warning Systems” at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) through its Bangladesh Network Office for Urban Safety (BNUS) directed by Dr. Mehedi Ahmed Ansary. The report summarizes the workshop and its sessions. Overall, the workshop was a success in familiarizing the Bangladeshi audience with the HazInfo pilot project and meeting the objectives.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Tsunami concern for Bay of Bengal Now, Phil Cummins, lead author on the Nature paper and a geologist at Geoscience Australia, believes this is not the case.He said: “I reviewed the geological literature and found the evidence for a lack of tectonic activity along the Myanmar coast was not compelling.” Historical evidence Recent GPS data, he said, suggested that the plate boundary was at sea in this area, hidden below thick layers of sediment.
By Nuwan Waidyanatha The Hazard Information Hub (HIH), operated by Sarvodaya as part of the Last-Mile Hazard Information Dissemination Project (HazInfo) to disseminate Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) risk information to the villages in Sri Lanka, monitored the recent tsunami drills conducted in the Pacific by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in the USA. The HazInfo project initiated by LIRNEasia, is a multipartner initiative aimed at tackling the “last-mile” challenges in developing an all-hazards approach to disaster management and mitigation.