Press
Information Bureau
Government of India Ministry of Earth Science
12-December-2012
19:10 IST
Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre
The Indian Tsunami Early
Warning Centre (ITEWC) established at Indian National Centre for Ocean
Information Sciences, (INCOIS - ESSO) Hyderabad, autonomous body under Ministry
of Earth Sciences, is being upgraded continuously to provide tsunami advisories
for the events occurring in the global oceans, though it has been recognized as
one of the best systems in the world. The major upgradation work would be
Standardization of the Operating Procedures, bulletin formats and terminologies
with warning centres operating in other global basins. To achieve this, the
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC of UNESCO) has set up a task
team comprising of experts from tsunami warning centres of all ocean basins,
with India as the Chair. The ITEWC encompasses a real-time seismic monitoring
network of 17 broadband seismic stations to detect tsunamigenic earthquakes, a
network of real-time sea-level sensors with 4 Bottom Pressure Recorders (BPR)
in the open ocean and 25 tide gauge stations at different coastal locations
monitor tsunamis and a 24 X 7 operational tsunami warning centre to provide
timely advisories to vulnerable community. It also receives earthquake data
from all other global networks to detect earthquakes of M>6.5. The
state-of-the-art early warning centre at INCOIS - ESSO is operational since
October 15, 2007 with all the necessary computational and communication
infrastructure that enables reception of real-time data from seismic &
sea-level sensors, analysis of the data, tsunami modeling, and dissemination of
tsunami advisories guided by a comprehensive Standard Operating Procedure
(SOP). A host of all available communication technology options have been
employed for timely dissemination of advisories to various designated
authorities to deal with effective emergency response actions as appropriate.
The centre is capable of detecting tsunamigenic earthquakes occurring in the
whole of Indian Ocean region as well as in the Global Oceans within 10 minutes
of their occurrence and disseminates the advisories to the concerned
authorities within 20 minutes through various modes of communication like
email, fax, SMS, GTS and website. Since its inception in October 2007 to till
date, ITEWC has monitored 339 earthquakes of M > 6.5 out of which 63 are in
the Indian Ocean region. ITEWC also acts as one of the Regional Tsunami
advisory Service Provider (RTSP) along with Australia & Indonesia for the
Indian Ocean region. As the oceans on the earth are interconnected, the tsunami
waves generated due to any great earthquakes in the global oceans can affect
the Indian Coasts. In order to protect our coasts from tsunamis up-grading the
present system is very essential. Up-gradation of ITEWC will also enhance its
capability to provide tsunami advisories to the other needy countries in the
world. The basic infra-structure and the necessary computational facilities are
established while setting up the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre and hence
no major hardware upgradations are proposed. The maintenance of the entire early
warning system is carried out with a budget allocation of Rs. 17.00 Crores per
annum. Model simulations required for global operations would be run as part of
this itself. Additional data required for the enhancement of ITEWC for global
operations can be obtained by collaborations with centres operating in other
countries.
Currently, there are 1800 coastal forecast points covering coastal areas of the entire Indian Ocean region. The necessary actions have been initiated to upgrade the same for covering other the coastal regions. The above information was given by the Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Shri S. Jaipal Reddy to the Parliament. |
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