The Hindu : Kerala News : State a low-risk zone for tsunami onslaughts: expert

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 31, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

State a low-risk zone for tsunami onslaughts: expert

By R. Madhavan Nair

KOZHIKODE, DEC. 30. P. Basak, disaster management expert and former Executive Director of the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM), has said that Kerala is a low-risk area in terms of tsunami disasters in future.

From the point of threat from tsunamis, ``Kerala is almost safe, but there is no room for complacency either,'' Dr. Basak told The Hindu here today.

Dr. Basak has been chief resource person and chief coordinator of disaster management training programmes in 11 countries in South-East Asia and South Asia. He has organised 20 disaster management training programmes sponsored by the Union Department of Science and Technology and Carithas India in different parts of the country for non-governmental organisations and senior government officials.

No complacency

He said that if at all a tsunami hits Kerala again, the effect would be much less in intensity than the one witnessed on December 26. However, there is no room for complacency. In fact, because of the breaking of the Australia tectonic plate from the Indian tectonic plate, possibilities of seismic activities that trigger tsunami have increased in the Indian Ocean. So far, the tsunami phenomenon has been limited mainly to the Pacific Ocean.

An earthquake of nine Richter intensity which set off the latest tsunami usually occurs only in intervals of 50 to 60 years. Which is why there is no need for panic in Kerala. But quakes of less intensity that may be dangerous cannot be ruled out. That is why an alert has been maintained in the State's shoreline.

But the location of Kerala in relation to the direction of movement of giant waves of tsunami is such that a major portion of the State would fall in what may be called a tsumani shadow region. The State is not as seismogenic as some other States. Nor are there volcanic mountains that could trigger tsunamis. Chances of earthquakes in the Arabian Sea are also low. That is why Kerala is considered low-risk zone for major tsunami onslaughts in the near future. The scientist said the scale of devastation caused by the recent tsunami would have been much less in India had an effective disaster management machinery been in place.

Not in mailing list

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre had reported seismic activity at Sumatra in the Indian Ocean 15 minutes after it occurred. In a second message, the centre had stated that there was ``possibility of tsunami in the epicentre,'' which was Indian Ocean. The message is available even now on the website www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/

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Unfortunately, the centre did not have in its mailing list the address in India to which the information had to be relayed. As a result, the Indian authorities failed to receive the warning and initiate effective disaster management measures. The result was a heavy loss of human lives.

The warning was relayed to the Sri Lankan authorities through the U.S. Ambassador. But by then the tsunami had struck the island.

Dr. Basak said the tsunami disaster had shown clearly that the country did not have an effective disaster management system. The authorities manning the system failed even to send their mailing address to the tsunami warning system. ``It is a small slip but with catastrophic consequences,'' Dr. Basak said.

Seven hits

It also made clear that the disaster management set-up was in the grip of complacency. There is no valid reason to ignore tsunami threat. It had hit the Indian coast seven times in the last 200 years, but the scale of damage was not serious, which might be the reason why disaster managers here were so complacent.

Andaman Nicobar Islands was hit by the tsumani 90 minutes after the earthquake in Indonesia. It was much later that the killer waves spewed death in the coastal areas of the country.

Dr. Basak said if a proactive disaster management system was in place, there would have been sufficient time to mitigate the scale of disaster the killer waves caused on the Indian shores on December 26.

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