INDIA'S INITIATIVE IN MITIGATING TSUNAMI AND STORM SURGE HAZARD

Soon after the occurrence of the most devastating tsunami caused by the 26th December, 2004 Sumatra earthquake, India took the initiative to set up an end-to-end system to mitigate tsunami and storm surge hazard. The system includes all the necessary elements: networking of seismic stations; deployment of ocean bottom pressure recorders; real time sea level monitoring stations; establishment of radar based monitoring stations for real time measurement of surface currents and waves; modeling for tsunamis and storm surges; generation of coastal inundation and vulnerability maps; operation of a tsunami and storm surges warning centre on 24 x 7 basis; capacity building and training of all the stakeholders and communication with the global community. This initiative was estimated to have a direct cost of US $30 million and was to be operative by August 2007. This has been achieved. The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information and Services (INCOIS), belonging to the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), located at Hyderabad, is the nodal agency for this program. The system fared well during the occurrence of September 12/13, 2007 tsunamigenic earthquakes. One of the problems is delay in estimating the size of large earthquakes. Empirical approaches are being developed to quickly estimate the size of the earthquakes occurring in Sumatra-Andaman zone of tsunamigenic earthquakes.