Context
- In a first two coastal villages of Odisha have been recognized as being “Tsunami Ready” by UNESCO for their overall preparedness to face the calamity.
Key Details
- With it, Odisha became the first state in the country to have such villages and the country the first in the Indian Ocean region to achieve the honour from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO.
- The two coastal are Venkatraipur (Boxipalli) village of Rangeilunda block in Ganjam district and Noliasahi village of Ersama block in Jagatsinghpur district.
- Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), which was set up in the state following the 1999 super cyclone that claimed 10,000 lives, has implemented the Tsunami Ready programme in the State.
Back to Basics
Tsunami Ready
- A community performance-based programme initiated by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCOto promote tsunami preparedness through active collaboration of public, community leaders, and national and local emergency management agencies.
- The main objective of this programme is to improve coastal community’s preparedness for tsunami emergencies, to minimize the loss of life and property and to ensure a structural and systematic approach in building community preparedness through fulfilling the best-practice indicators set by the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWMS) of UNESCO-IOC.
INCOIS
- The Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC), INCOIS is the nodal agency to provide tsunami advisories to India. INCOIS is also providing tsunami advisories to Indian Ocean region (25 countries) as a Tsunami Service Providers as the responsibility assigned by IOC-UNESCO.
- To implement and monitor the implementation of Tsunami Ready and IOWave Exercises in India, Ministry of Earth Sciences established a National Board under the chairmanship of Director, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Centre (INCOIS) with members drawn from Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), Andaman & Nicobar Islands Directorate of Disaster Management (DDM) and INCOIS.
- INCOIS is also founding member of the Indian Ocean Global Ocean Observing System (IOGOOS) Programme.
About Tsunami
- a series of waves with a long wavelength and period (time between crests). Time between crests of the wave can vary from a few minutes to over an hour.
- Often incorrectly called tidal waves; they have no relation to the daily ocean tides.
- They frequently occur in the Pacific, where dense oceanic plates slide under the lighter continental plates.
- Movements are caused by different types of geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions.