Dear Peter, As always a belated response to people in great need, however to maybe offer some hope - Yesterday the Australian Federal Govt announced that Geoscience Australia (http://www.ga.gov.au/) was now tasked with constructing a Tsunami early-warning system for SE Asia similar to that in the Pacific. They are seeking international partners however if necessary will go it alone to see the project completed (as reported).
This is mostly in acknowledgement that as with the US, Geoscience Aus was well aware of the Tsunami�s approaching Asia through their network of seismic and oceanography sensors and had notified EMA (Emergency Management Australia) who in turn had a capability to provide at least 30 minutes advance warning to most of the impacted areas, and in the case of India more than 1.5 hours warning. Sadly, and to the great frustration of all involved, despite frantic attempts EMA were unable to contact any coordinated Asian authorities to let them know about the threat. We also must acknowledge that even if they had been so able, there was no mechanism in place to notify the people. It all comes down to communications (it�s the same with any civil emergency). So to your second point about communications, not only is the technology available; it has been available for nearly a century making the lack of a coordinated communications network throughout SE Asia even more tragic for those involved. The reality is that emergency technology is not expensive; it just requires management, coordination and cooperation to become a reality. From a technological perspective Australia�s primary emergency notification system consists of nothing more complex than common house-hold radios. Emergency alerts are broadcast across the public spectrum. Emergency notifications (calls from people needing help when telephony and other techno-based systems fail during Cyclones or floods etc.) are mostly carried by a very old, yet inherently very reliable UHF citizens band radio network monitored by volunteer emergency groups throughout the nation. People are notified about threats on or near our beaches by old air-raid sirens. This is not a system requiring computers or any other form of advanced technology other than a few UHF repeaters at strategic locations to provide nation-wide coverage (you will find fixed and portable UHF transceivers at every remote community or settlement on the continent). The reason it�s so reliable during civil emergencies is because it does not rely on computing technologies. The real problems yet to be addressed are those of priorities, coordination and cooperation � the systems themselves are very cheap, however they only work if emergency mitigation is deemed a priority and accompanied by appropriate management and support processes. Whilst we continue to see limited resources being prioritised towards what are mostly �recreational technologies� like the Internet at the expense of life-preserving systems we probably will not see any true developments. Rgds, Don _______________________________________________ telecentres mailing list [email protected] http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/telecentres To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
