Mock tsunami drill on Sept 7-8 involves evacuation of 35,000 people

The drill, known as IOWave 16, is being held by UNESCO-led Inter-governmental Oceanographic Commission

India, along with 23 other Indian Ocean nations, is participating in a major Indian ocean-wide tsunami mock drill on September 7-8, 2016. The drill, known as IOWave 16, is being organised by the UNESCO-led Inter-governmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC).

The drill will involve the evacuation of around 35,000 people from the coastal communities mostly in Odisha and also in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Gujarat and Goa, according to the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) based in Hyderabad.

The UNESCO had coordinated the establishment of Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System in the aftermath of 2004 December tsunami that had claimed a number of lives in Tamil Nadu and other states on the eastern coast of India apart from causing a large scale devastation in Japan and Srilanka.

 

The ITEWC was set up in 2007 as a part of Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, and is claimed to be capable of detecting tsunamigenic earthquakes within 10 minutes of the occurrence of earthquake on the sea bed and issue timely tsunami advisories to disaster management officials as well as to the vulnerable communities.

The IOWave 16 comprise two scenarios: the first will simulate an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2 south of Sumatra, Indonesia, on September 7 at 8.30 am and the second will simulate an earth quake with a magnitude of 9.0 in Makran Trench south of Iran and Pakistan on September 8 at 11.30 am. Both exercises will be conducted in real time lasting for about 12 hours and ITEWC will issue 15 tsunami bulletins to both national and regional stake holders through GTS, email, fax, sms as well as web.

International observers and media teams from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction(UNISDR) are being deputed to India and Seychelles to report on the drill as well as to prepare a film for the upcoming Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction-2016 in New Delhi which will be conducted from November 2-5, 2016, according to a statement.