The tsunami warning system (TWS [1] ) consists of two equally important components: a network of sensors that detect tsunamis , and a communication system with which the coastal areas in hazardous areas are warned in advance. TWS are international and regional.
Content
History
The first attempts to predict the tsunami and notify the population about it were made in Hawaii in the 1920s. After the devastating earthquake near the Aleutian Islands in 1946 and the Great Chilean earthquake in 1960, the development and improvement of the tsunami warning system received a new impetus. The TWS is based on the fact that the speed of the tsunami wave in the open ocean is 500-1000 km / h (0.14-0.28 km / s), and seismic waves propagate much faster: 2-13 km / s, and the tsunami , as you know, there is an earthquake under water. To notify the public about the approaching wave, all available methods are used at once: SMS [2] [3] , e-mail, fax, telex, radio, sirens, emergency warning system . To date, this system is working, but it produces a lot of false positives.
In the world
- Pacific Ocean
Pacific Tsunami Warnings are handled by the [4] (established in 1949), managed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , headquartered in Hawaii . Also about the tsunami approaching the west coast of North America, warns the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (created in 1967; location - Palmer , Alaska ) [5] .
- Indian Ocean
Following the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake in 2004, the UN decided to establish the [6] , which began operations in 2006. By 2013, this structure is most developed in Indonesia [7] .
- Northeast Atlantic, Mediterranean and adjacent seas
The issue of the need to create a tsunami warning system in the North-East Atlantic , the Mediterranean and its adjacent seas was discussed at the UNESCO Assembly in 2005, but there was no consensus.
- The Caribbean
In 2008, the Caribbean Community decided to establish a Caribbean Tsunami Warning System by 2010 [8] . In 2010, Barbados was the first in the community to test the resulting system in action. It can be noted that the last major tsunami in the region occurred in 1882 , when a wave struck Panama and claimed the lives of 4,500 people. Financing will be $ 250,000 per year [8] .
- USSR and Russia
In 1952, the city of Severo-Kurilsk in the Sakhalin Region was almost completely destroyed by the tsunami. After that, a government decree on the organization of a tsunami warning service was issued. Since 1956, the seismic part of the work began to be carried out by the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk seismic station, in 1959 the Petropavlovsk station began to “help” it, and then four more stations on the Kuril Islands were added to them. In 1958-1959, three tsunaminstations and two tide gauges were launched in the region. Since 1961, all meteorological stations of the Kuril Islands were involved in observations of tsunami waves, they were equipped with high-altitude landmarks for visual determination of wave heights. During the 1960s, tsunami observation posts, tide gauges continued to open, round-the-clock observation teams were created. By 1980, TWS issued 80 warnings, but 70% of them were false, and in 20% of cases the tsunami were missed. In 1980, the government decided for ten years to create a unified automated tsunami warning system that would work more clearly [1] .
In 1991-2005, the TWS steadily fell into decline. In 2003, the Tsunami Warning Service received the status of the functional subsystem of the FP RSCHS-Tsunami . Since 2006, the restoration of the TWS in Russia began [1] .
Weaknesses
Unfortunately, this system is useless when the epicenter of the earthquake is located near the coast. For example, there was simply not enough time to warn the inhabitants of the Japanese island of , who was most affected during the in 1993, when 230 people died.
See also
- Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis
- Underwater sound channel
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 Russian tsunami warning service on rtws.ru
- ↑ SMS Tsunami Warning at sms-tsunami-warning.com
- ↑ SMS Tsunami Warning at cwarn.org
- ↑ official website
- ↑ Official site of West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center
- ↑ Indian Ocean Tsunami Detector at geocities.com (Archived from the original on October 27, 2009)
- ↑ Distant Early Warning Sistem Official Website
- ↑ 1 2 Caribbean plans tsunami warning system by 2010 on uk.reuters.com , March 13, 2008
Links
- How does the Tsunami Warning System work? on tsunami.noaa.gov
- Tsunami: warnings and forecasts on the website tsunami.noaa.gov
- Conrad C Lautenbacher Jr. Systems Challenges on a Global Scale. Tsunami Warning Systems on nae.edu
- United Australian Tsunami Warning Center
- Australian Tsunami Warning System
- All About Tsunamis - Tsunami Warning Systems at cynami.com
- Roshydromet order of August 1, 2006 No. 171 “On approval of the Regulation on the functional tsunami warning subsystem of the unified state system for preventing and eliminating emergency situations” on base.garant.ru