Australia: Tsunami warning system meeting in Perth
The first big step towards an effective Indian Ocean tsunami warning system will come at a three-day meeting in Perth next week. Representatives of up to 29 Indian Ocean countries are expected to attend to work on technical plans for the system, including coordinating data and communicating warnings. The move follows last year's Boxing Day tsunami which killed at least 250,000 people in Asia, including 25 Australians.
The task of getting the system up and running has been coordinated by the United Nation agency UNESCO, specifically its oceans intergovernmental coordination group (ICG). A UNESCO spokeswoman said the Perth meeting would look at technical plans for the system, including seismic data and collection, sea level data collection and exchange, deep-sea pressure measurements, warnings and alerts and communication. Read More...
(Source: The AGE)
The task of getting the system up and running has been coordinated by the United Nation agency UNESCO, specifically its oceans intergovernmental coordination group (ICG). A UNESCO spokeswoman said the Perth meeting would look at technical plans for the system, including seismic data and collection, sea level data collection and exchange, deep-sea pressure measurements, warnings and alerts and communication. Read More...
(Source: The AGE)
Angelo Embuldeniya at 5:22:00 pm |
Hi,
I am new to blogging and do not know if this is the right forum to post.
My thought is : Can training vulnerable populations in safety precautions can reduce the number of casualities in future disasters?
For example: If it was common knowledge that a suddenly receding sea could be a prelude to a Tsunami,
could many people have been saved?
I haven't found much disaster precaution material on the web and was wondering if any reader can point me to some. Any such material for hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding would be welcome.
My intention is to find a way to get this information to the people on th ground who need them before a disaster strikes.
Thanks,
Mathura
with reference to mathura_N' comment
"getting disaster breparedness info to grassroot" that is what we are trying to do. We are a small group of volunteers from Sri Lanka, Peraliya, the village where the train was washed away by recent Tsunami. We have a small warning center with interent and email, telephone , radio and television. Eight youths from the village work there 24 hours a day. We have fixed 6 loudspeakers in the community. We do small talks to villagers on Tsunami and what to do in a threat. We are called Community Tsunami Early-warning Center or CTEC in brief.
reply to wijeny@yahoo.com
thanks
Here is a rather timely opportunity:
Did you know that S.I.T. (School for International Training), is offering a 12 month Master of Art's in Sustainable Development in Sri Lanka beginning in January 2006?
An accelerated, contributory degree plan offered through a partnership with a mindful local NGO. A unique opportunity.
Details are available at the
website at http://www.sit.edu/srilanka
Building up on what wijeny from the peraliya village in Sri Lanka said, I'd just like to share some info with anyone who's interested in helping out:
I'm Angelo Embuldeniya, an Information Systems Specialist with VolunteerSriLanka (VSL) and currently a co-blogger on the SEA EAT Blog as well. VSL was formed in the wake of the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka last December and our main mission and purpose was facilitating volunteer placements in the country. Originally we had the UNDP & AIESEC in Sri Lanka who coordinated volunteer efforts with VSL and later on VSL became a clearinghouse for all incoming volunteers to Sri Lanka, basically we find volunteers placements with NGOs/CBOs/NPOs/etc. in Sri Lanka and to date we've placed over 800 volunteers. You can find out more about VSL on our site - volunteersrilanka.org
Moving on to the Peraliya village, somewhere during the second week of January, while a VSL team was carrying out assessments of the areas in the South Coast of Sri Lanka, we discovered Bruce (An aussie volunteer) and the Peraliya village - where the train had derailed. At the time, Peraliya was a complete mess with mass graves in the process of being dug for the numerous bodies that needed to be buried, sanitation facilities were poor, Bruce and his team of fellow volunteers were quite small at the time but were doing as much as they could to better the situation. As soon as we got in touch with Bruce, Peraliya saw many volunteers coming in to pick up the pieces and move on. Almost everyday as I remember, Bruce, Don and the other volunteer workers would find new villages that had not seen food or water for more than 2 weeks at a time.
Thanks to generous donors locally and from overseas, many projects got going for the Peraliya village, we always saw a steady flow of volunteers coming in and there were loads of hands to help. Obviously by the middle to the end of January all the cameras, press and media had left Sri Lanka and I bet other affected countries to deal with the post-tsunami crisis.
It was the volunteers, donors, villagers and local CBOs & NGOs who got things going onwards and today Peraliya is way better that what it was back in Jan. Clean water, food, an emergency center, and many houses have been rebuilt and still are.
The group of volunteers at the Peraliya Village are really a special set of people, skilled, independent and have the inspiration to motivate others and get projects and people's lives moving onwards.
I kindly request anyone interested in supporting the peraliya village and their group of volunteers to check out their help page here: http://www.peraliya.com/page6.htm
| If you can't send cash for their projects, then donating your time as a volunteer or providing them with radio equipment and other needed infrastructure will be very much appreciated.
Thank you all for taking the time to read this, and it's all power to the volunteers for making the dreams of a better life for the survivors of the Tsunami come true!
Cheers,
Angelo Embuldeniya
VolunteerSriLanka (VSL)
www.volunteersrilanka.org