Tsunami: Pralay almost

It is such a sad state of affairs. Tsunami demolishes poor fishing settlements on South Indian east coast 2 hours after similar waves crash through Indonesia. Nicobar has almost been wiped out. In the first few days, it was with morbid interest that I followed the body count shooting up. After a while, the numbers became too much to stand.

There is no warning system for the subcontinent. Yes, it is 20-20 hindsight, but one would assume someone among the 1 billion populace should have been watching. Somebody from the US monitoring system did notice perturbances, but did not care to send out an alert because it was outside their domain.

Could the greatest tragedy to hit mankind after WW II been averted? Who is to blame? Well, to be more optimistic, who will take the responsibility from now on? Nobody thought Tsunamis could hit the Indian ocean, they usually plague the pacific ocean. I can't help but wonder, is there something else we are missing? Comfortably cocooned in comfort in our own little worlds till we are awakened by nature.

From a World Bank news brief
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Tsunami Warning System To Be Set Up By End Of 2006 =====================================================================

Experts from the United Nations and Indian Ocean countries agreed to set up a tsunami warning system at a five-day meeting at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris to prevent a repeat of the catastrophe that struck on December 26, UNESCO said, reports The Associated Press. A fully functioning system that detects undersea earthquakes and broadcasts warnings to coastal communities is expected to be in place by the end of 2006, said Patricio Bernal, executive secretary of UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, on Tuesday.

Agence France Presse explains that countries will receive seismic data from April 1 from earthquake monitoring stations in Tokyo and Hawaii. In the medium term, technicians will set up tidal gauges at six sites in the eastern Indian Ocean, mainly near Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, and upgrade 15 existing gauge sites elsewhere in the region, he said. The instruments will be on the lookout for large waves 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing a rudimentary alert system for tsunamis "from October-November," said Bernal. The final step is a sophisticated system around the Indian Ocean that will comprise a regional warning centre and a network of seabed sensors and gauges, which in turn will alert 26 national tsunami warning centers. Bernal said two important aspects of the Indian Ocean scheme remain to be settled. One is where to locate the regional warning centre. France, for one, has suggested it be on the French island department of La Reunion. However, one idea floated in the Paris meeting is to divide some of the future center's responsibilities among several sites. The other unresolved question is how much the system will cost.

Countries also expressed their eagerness to set up tsunami warning systems for the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas, Bernal said. China and the Philippines especially urged the creation of a system for the South China Sea. Reid Basher, a senior advisor at the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, emphasized that, in any region, technology was only one part of the solution. "Countries still have to get the educational issue resolved," he said, pointing to the need for countries to have an effective national alert system and train citizens to respond to it.

The Associated Press adds that a second UNESCO-sponsored meeting will be held next month in Mauritius to finalize policy matters and broach divisive questions, including whether one country would host a disaster warning center or if the responsibilities would be distributed across the region. Member states plan to meet in June to formally adopt the plan, but work is getting under way immediately.

Indian Railways: Off track?

Yet another rail mishap in the month of June 2003! The number of mishaps this year must have moved into double digits by now.

What is the deal with the Indian Railways? Isn't it the largest employer in the world of railway personnel? Don't we have a seperate railway budget that is presented even before the national budget? Doesn't that mean we give priority to our railways? Then, how many more "operator errors" have to occur before we wake-up to the fact that our railways have to be revamped?

Indian railways transport 11 million people every day. Statistically the loss of life may be lesser than on our roads. (Our roads kill 40,000 people a year, if I got my numbers right). But the Indian railway scenario is pretty shabby if you compare it to the levels of safety other countries have achieved in the railway sector. If the number of railway mishaps that occured in 2003 happened anywhere else, it would have gotten the country up in arms!

Is the Indian public memory that short or are we indifferent to what happens in our country? Are these mishaps not focussing events that should dictate policy? If India can spend 60,000 crores on developing new roads (golden quadrilateral project) over the next 5 years, can it not afford to spend the 15,000 crores that the government has estimated as the amount required for improving railway safety. Surely India should be able to finance the improvements to our antiquated system with railway bonds.

I have long cherished all my train journeys in southern India. I am of the opinion that the Indian railways is the ultimate mode of transportation for our subcontinent. Hence it distresses me to hear about all the mishaps hurting our railways and also our country.

When will the policy makers wake-up? Will they ever let us see the light at the end of this tunnel?