World will heed India's tsunami warning RTWC AT Hyderabad will hereafter function as the main centre for tsunami PREDICTION

World will heed India's tsunami warning

RTWC AT Hyderabad will hereafter function as the main centre for tsunami PREDICTION

India is rising as an international power with the country' scientists taking over the responsibility of issuing advance warning on tsunami to all countries falling in the Indian Ocean rim. The Regional Tsunami Warning Centre (RTWC) at Hyderabad, set up by scientists of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) will hereafter function as the main centre for tsunami warning for all countries in the Indian Ocean community. Scientists of INCOIS under the leadership of its director Dr Satish Shenoi will share their expertise on standard operating procedures on tsunami warning and emergency response in a five-day session to be held at Jakarta in Indonesia, said Dr Shailesh Naik, secretary, Union ministry of earth sciences. "The RTWC at Hyderabad is capable of picking up any abnormal behaviour in the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea and analyse the data in real time to find out the possibility of tsunamis and earthquakes," Dr Naik told DNA after a day-long "communication drill" involving India and other Indian Ocean countries held on Wednesday at INCOIS to test the preparedness of the communication systems. He said Indian scientists would monitor the entire Indian Ocean region on a round-the-clock basis and alert other countries about possible tsunami attacks. "The Jakarta session will see the integration of all countries in the region to a standard operating procedure (SOP) on tsunami warning and mitigation system designed and developed by our scientists," Naik said. The SOP was prepared with the data collected from the tsunami attacks in the region since December 2004. Dr Shenoi said INCOIS has the expertise to issue tsunami alerts at least 15 minutes in advance to all agencies. "There will be sufficient time to evacuate people to safer regions. The tsunami buoys installed in various locations in the seas and the data collected from seismic stations along the rim of the Indian Ocean will be studied for issuing warnings and advisories to all countries in the region," he said. The tsunami buoys will pick up data like wind speed, sea surface temperatures, pressure, height and direction of waves 24X7 and relay the same to the RTWC where they are analysed real time and disseminated to all countries. "The RTWC Hyderabad is equipped with modern instruments and trained professionals. Since 2008, we were issuing tsunami warnings to only a group of nations but now the intergovernmental coordination group of the UNESCO has designated us as the centre for alerting all Indian Ocean nations," said Srinivas Kumar, head, RTWC.