form the Indian Express website
Evacuate, says Govt, its tidal wave alert based on web posting & note from a US firm
PRANAB DHAL SAMANTA & SONU JAIN
Posted online: Friday, December 31, 2004 at 0215 hours IST
NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 30: On Black Sunday, they worked in splendid isolation. Today, a vague message from an experimental US firm and some random Internet downloads made the Union Home Ministry jerk its knee—and issue a tsunami alert at 10 am to all affected states, even asking them to begin evacuation.
This set off a tidal wave of panic that hit the already battered and bruised coastline, from Tamil Nadu and Kerala to Andaman and Nicobar Islands and brought relief work to a standstill. For at least eight hours.
It was only at 4.30 pm that Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil dismissed the alert urging all relief and rescue agencies to get back to the work that lay ahead.
In fact, the text of the Home Ministry’s warning—which until midnight hasn’t yet been withdrawn—is a startling example of how not to communicate in the aftermath of a disaster.
‘‘A number of experts from outside (the) country are suggesting that another Tsunami may hit Indian Ocean today afternoon in the event of an earthquake of high intensity which may happen near Australian region’’.
The alert admits that the Ministry was yet to carry out an assessment but shows touching faith in ‘‘various sources and the websites’’. And on this basis, it asks respective states and union territories to put their administrative machinery on ‘‘alert in coastal areas’’.
But its punch-line was the one that kicked off the panic: ‘‘Arrangements may also be tied up for evacuation of people if required. Shore line up to 2 km into the main land may be made non-accessible to the general public’’. The same advice was sent out to the Armed Forces who, in turn, put their troops on alert for evacuation instead of continuing with the relief work.
8 hrs later, Sibal steps in to say hogwash; alert not withdrawn yet.
Within minutes, scenes of panic played out on TV from all across the affected areas. This led to a further spiral of panic prompting Sibal to make a few appearances and downplay the alert.
It was only at his press conference that he said: ‘‘There was no official warning that a tsunami will hit the east coast once again in the next few hours.’’ Using very strong words, he said that any claims of a predictions were ‘‘hogwash’’ and ‘‘unscientific’’ that need to be rejected.
‘‘We can only identify fault lines in the earth crust and suggest these areas might be prone to earthquake,’’ Sibal said.
When confronted with this, A K Rastogi, Secretary in-charge of disaster management in the Home Ministry, said: ‘‘I have no further comment. But my hunch is that the minister (Sibal) is being quoted out of context.’’
Rastogi said the alert was based on inputs downloaded from a website of tsunami warning centre for Australia and Asia-Pacific. This was contested because the only reliable centre in the region is the one located at Hawaii. But Rastogi’s refrain: ‘‘I have no further comments’’.
This was a complete contrast from the fact that several rooms down the same corridor, the MEA spokesperson was spelling out an ambitious effort being put together by India, US, Australia and Japan.
Interestingly, one of the ‘‘foreign expert warnings’’ that formed the basis of the alert was a note passed from the Department of Science and Technology to the crisis management cell of the Home Ministry.
This was a mail received from a Portland-based agency Terra Research that claimed its sensors installed in the US indicated that there was a possibility of a quake of the magnitude of 7.9-8.1 over next 12 hours at the fault line between Sumatra and New Zealand. If it happens in the water, the chance of tsunamis was real, said the warning.
When contacted by The Indian Express, Michael McNulty from Terra Research said: ‘‘It’s a new technology with very little known about it as yet.’’ Claiming that the firm can pick ‘‘signals’’ of earthquakes more then 7 on the Richter scale, McNulty claimed that his team had a forewarning of the December 26 quake but by the time they analysed data, it had already struck.
‘‘This time, we did not want to take chances, so we contacted the Indian embassy and we applaud the Indian Govt for the speedy reaction and evacuation,’’ said McNulty
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