Not much learnt from 2004 Tsunami

Twenty per cent of municipalities in coastal regions have tsunami hazard maps and seismic performance of 59 % of sea walls not conducted.

Updated on: Apr 13, 2011, 22:44:24 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Most coastal regions in are still highly vulnerable to Tsunami despite the 2004 devastation that hit the Bay of Bengal coast, an environment ministry committee has said, while recommending measures to minimize the impact.

“The percentage of people who can evacuate in the even of a Tsunami is low, and effort to provide information to help the public to understand the true nature of tsunami is insufficient,” the ministry Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) said in its assessment of Tsunami preparedness in the country.

A Tsunami warning is possible within three to five minutes and the first wave can hit the shores within several minutes of the earthquake but observation of tide and wave length and offshore observation in Indian seas is not adequate. There is no consistency in reference level used by different organizations for tide observations, the committee said.

The vulnerability of Indian coasts can be gauged from the fact that seismic performance of 59 percent of sea walls in important coastal zones has not been conducted. Only 20 percent of municipalities in the coastal belt have Tsunami hazard maps and about 20 % do not have tsunami response drills.

The worse seems to be connecting with people as there is no established system for providing easy to understand information to local public bodies and residents, the committee said, while asking the government to prepare communities better to deal with cyclones and tsunamis.

“Roads, railways and airports located near coastline have not been inspected adequately with respect to safety against tsunami height…Many facilities storing hazardous and noxious substances such as Liquid Natural Gas, Nuclear Power Plants are not protected from tsunami,” the committee --- asked to evaluate infrastructure projects on Indian coasts after tsunami in --- said.

Highlighting that the fisherfolk living on Indian coasts are most vulnerable, the committee said, they need to be educated about good construction practices including site selection for building homes and information on the routes to safety once tsunami alarm is switched on. For add timely evacuation, the committee has suggested tsunami warning linked with magnitude of earthquake

For industrial projects in coastal areas, the committee has recommended additional conditions in the environment clearances. It includes defining ports and harbours on vulnerability to tsunami, the risk involved to the area, where they are set up and tsunami hazard map for each region of the Indian coasts.

The committee also wants the government to use satellites to study the impact on marine environment of Tsunami depending on the height of the waves and whether bio-shields can be created to minimize the impact.

The environment ministry with the World Bank has started Rs 125 crore project to map ’s coast line using satellite. ’s 7,500 km long coastline has been divided into two regions to conduct coastal vulnerability mapping. The Survey of India, a body under Department of Science and Technology, will implement the project.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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