Tsunami project to reduce deaths starts next year

Indian researchers will start work on a colossal project next year, hoping to estimate, using computer simulation, the impact of a possible tsunami within minutes of an earthquake, a scientist said yesterday.

Such simulations will help India put together a national survival plan in the event of a tsunami, minimising loss of life and property, said K.S. Krishna of the government's National Institute of Oceanography.

"Tsunamis have been rare and sporadic, but we need to understand the common factors of all the occurrences," said Krishna, who is coordinating the project.

Various research organisations across India will be selected to help with the project, which will start in January, Krishna said in a telephone interview from the government-run institutes headquarters in the western city of Goa.

At the core of the project is a detailed study of past tsunamis and their relationship with the one on December 26, 2004, that devastated coastlines in parts of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and other Indian Ocean countries.

Krishna said the project would be split into several areas of study, each looking into factors such as the frequency of tsunamis, the intensity of their attack on various coastal points, variables that increase or reduce the probability of a tsunami, and early warning signs.

The findings would be part of India's upcoming coastal hazard preparedness plan that would also include early warning and crisis management measures for storm surges, underwater mudslides, volcanic eruptions, coastal erosions, harmful algae blooms and oil spills.

India is also building a tsunami warning centre in the southern city of Hyderabad at a cost of $28 million (Dh103 million), which it expects to open by September 2007.

history
A coastline under threat

• Earthquake-induced tsunamis hit India in 1881, 1941 and 1945, and one caused by a volcanic eruption in Indonesia came in 1883. Indian literature and recent archaeological finds also suggest tsunamis had occurred in the region even 2,000 years ago.
• The December 26 tsunami killed 10,749 people in India. Another 5,640 people are listed as missing but are presumed dead. At least 2.7 million people were affected.
• India has a coastline of 7,500kms, along which more than 250 million people live.