Research Paper on Pacific Tsunami Warning System: Ensuring Safety for 26 Member Countries

Introduction

Twenty-six international member countries comprise the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific. (Chatfield, & Brajawidagda, 2013). The Tsunami Warning System has a mandate of checking and monitoring any abnormal vibrations taking place on the earth and tidal stations in the Pacific Ocean to determine and identify potential earthquakes that can cause tsunamis and propagate any information to warn against a tsunami. An operational center for the Pacific Tsunami Warning System is known as the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center which has its location near Honolulu, Hawaii. This center supplies information warning the national authorities about the tsunami in the Pacific Basin.

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The Tsunami Warning System works by monitoring and disseminating information to the national weather authorities about possible threats of a tsunami following the identification of abnormal vibrations in the earth that is capable of causing earthquakes. (Chatfield, & Brajawidagda, 2013). It also has mandates of detecting, locating and determining the size and the strength of earthquake occurring at the Pacific Basin and its surrounding areas. After conducting its studies this body issues warning which includes predicting possible tsunami as well as the time it might occur and which coastal areas will suffer from this. Then the National Weather Service advises the government of the United States of America on the measures it should take to address the looming threat and how to prevent fatalities by opting to evacuate the people from the areas likely to be affected by the tsunami.

Indonesia despite the facts that it is prone to earthquakes emanating from volcanic activities which in turn cause tsunami that washes thousands of people, the country has never had an active Tsunami Warning System. (Horspool, Pranantyo, Griffin, Latief, Natawidjaja, Kongko, & Thio, 2014). Lack of such systems puts Indonesia on the spot people all over questioning if for lack of preparedness for this kind of a disaster. Most of the victims who were affected by the tsunami that took place in 2018 said that they were caught unaware as the government and the responsible agencies did not warn the people. (Horspool, et al., 2014). Lack of adequate information to inform the citizens depict a picture of failed systems to warn the country of the imminent threats of the tsunami. Therefore the Indonesian government should come up with agencies to gather and disseminate the necessary information about the tsunami.

However, the Tsunami Warning Systems is not all reliable as it has weaknesses such as; the time that the system uses in collecting tidal and seismic information, makes the warning that PTWC issues inadequate to protect areas against local tsunamis in the first hour after the occurrence. (Schindele, Gailler, Hebert, Loevenbruck, Gutierrez, Monnier, & Rivera, 2015). This has led to the establishment of regional warning systems in some of the hard-hit areas.

Due to the above limitations, steps to improve the Tsunami Warning Systems must be instituted to assist in efficiency as well as reliability of the information these systems disseminate in all the areas that are prone to tsunamis. (Schindele, et al., 2015). Some of the steps to be applied may include technological improvement and instrumentation as these are important in collecting accurate information hence provision of reliable information about the tsunamis. This would help a long way in the issuance of warnings on time. Additionally, other improvements to be implemented include the refinement of offshore tsunami sensors using wire link systems, crystal pressure transducers as well as data links through geostationary satellites between the shores.

Conclusion

Overall, to correct the limitations and to improve on the technology and the instrumentation that is necessary for adequate data collection and dissemination, a cost must, therefore, be incurred by the governments of the member states. The price will be as a result of the purchase of new systems, equipment and application of high standards of technology. Hiring experts would also see to cost shoot up. It is, however, worth the cost as many lives will end up being salvaged as warnings issued earlier will give the authorities and adequate time to plan the evacuation of those that are at the most considerable risk. If these warnings were issued in Indonesia in 2018 then, the more than 2000 lives lost would have been saved. (Horspool, et al., 2014).

References

Chatfield, A. T., & Brajawidagda, U. (2013, January). Twitter early tsunami warning system: A case study in Indonesia's natural disaster management. In 2013 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 2050-2060). IEEE.

Horspool, N., Pranantyo, I., Griffin, J., Latief, H., Natawidjaja, D. H., Kongko, W., ... & Thio, H. K. (2014). A probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment for Indonesia. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 14(11), 3105-3122.

Schindele, F., Gailler, A., Hebert, H., Loevenbruck, A., Gutierrez, E., Monnier, A., ... & Rivera, L. (2015). Implementation and challenges of the Tsunami Warning System in the Western Mediterranean. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 172(3-4), 821-833.