Strengthen Tsunami Warning system through regional Co-operation
Telangana: Hyderabad: December 4 (HS) The Indian Ocean is likely to be affected by tsunamis generated by earthquakes at two potential source regions, the Andaman-Nicobar-Sumatra Island subduction zone and the Makran Subduction Zone (MSZ). The MSZ off the coasts of Iran and Pakistan is poorly understood especially the land/mud slides that can be triggered by the earthquakes.It is possible that the tsunami waves generated by a Makran source can reach the shores of India, Iran, Oman, Pakistan and nearby countries within few tens of minutes with heights of several metres, posing enormous challenges to existing tsunami warning systems.
The Intergovernmental Coordination Group for Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWMS) of IOC-UNESCO is implementing a multi-national project funded by UNESCAP Trust Fund to “Strengthen the tsunami early warning processes in the North West Indian Ocean (NWIO) region through regional cooperation”.
The project will enable better understanding of the Makran tsunami hazard and enhance preparedness to respond to a near-field tsunami threat in this region. As a part of the project, the first meeting of the Expert Team for Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment (PTHA) for the Makran region is being organised in India.
The objective of this meeting is to agree on framework for the development of a unified PTHA for the NWIO region. To agree on principles of model construction, identify existing and required data-sets for a community seismo-tectonic model and tsunami propagation models, identify existing and required data sets, amplification factors, etc., to be used for the unified PTHA and future inundation modelling.
In this connection, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is hosting the meeting of the Experts for the Development of Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment (PTHA) for the Makran Region at INCOIS, Hyderabad during December 2-4, 2019. at its instiute premises. A total 14 delegates from 6 countries (Australia, Germany, India, Iran, Oman and USA) are attending.
