Another killer tsunami this morning, this time in Samoa, points to the missing link in Australia’s recently completed warning system.
The $68.9 million Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre, involving remote sensors and based in Melbourne, has no way of quickly telling 40,000 people on Bondi Beach, or anywhere similarly vulnerable, that a deadly wave is maybe a few hours, but perhaps just minutes away.
It’s still a case of the police and surf livesavers yelling at the masses “to run for your lives”.
A spokesman for the Centre said today that in the aftermath of the Victorian bushfire disaster, the Centre was looking at adopting whatever recommendations are made for serial or universal broadcasting of warnings to mobile telephones in range of the affected areas.
Apart from the final gap in getting the message to those at risk of death, the JATWC is cutting edge. It can identify a seismic event threatening to cause an Australian tsunami within 8 minutes, and have accurately assessed the locations and times of potential destruction within 18 minutes. It can then alert the state emergency response bodies and bombard the media with warnings. But unlike in Hawaii with its sirens, or Chile, with its long established automated calls and countdowns to at-risk mobile telephone areas, there is no final message and public response strategy in Australia.
Australians remain uneducated in tsunami response (and arguably poorly educated in bushfire response) unlike Hawaii, Japan, Chile, Taiwan, Korea and other tsunami savvy societies, where at risk residents grow up schooled in pre-arranged strategies.
The Samoa tsunami killed at least 100 people early this morning. A Richter 8.3 submarine earthquake caused a series of powerful waves that tore for more than 100 metres inland through villages. At least seven Australians have been reported as being treated for injuries, none of which are understood to have been life-threatening.
This tsunami threatened New Zealand where it caused abnormal waves but was not a risk to Australia.
The JATWC was set up after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed an estimated 280,000 people in western coastal areas of parts of Indonesia and Thailand and caused damage and loss of life across the Indian Ocean in Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
All Australian coastlines are at risk from tsunami, especially those originating from the Indo-Asian slip plate or similarly unstable tectonic zones near New Zealand and extending south to Macquarie Island.
There is geological evidence of large tsunamis in Australia in the comparatively recent past, and it is claimed one of them is referenced in a “great white wave” legend in the folklore of coastal Indigenous peoples in the Illawarra and Sydney region.
Scare mongering, Ben?
The good news is, that all of the steps have been taken care of since 2004, up to and including notifications to media. The final step, leading to individual text messages to mobile phone users in the at-risk area is being finalised so that it will harmonise with whatever emergency warning system is adopted for bush fire purposes in Victoria, and probably duplicated around the nation.
Nothing dramatic, but certainly informative and welcome news to me.
Leave the sensationalising to the News Corp outlets – they are experts at it.
Thanks for the update. Nice to know.
From @litikambourne on twitter
Breaking News – Australian woman killed in Samoa.
This is not scaremongering. A tsunami risk to Australia’s east coast exists from the seismic fault south of New Zealand for instance, which could reach us in 2 – 3 hours. If a destructive tsunami occurred at night, how do you think that would go down for waterfront residents sleeping within a few metres of sea level? A mobile phone warning system is urgently required, plus other measures on the ground.
Prof Ian Plimer a respected geologist, and it might be said discredited climate change skeptic, was on abc 702 Sydney Glover show yesterday and made the compelling point that mega tsunami – say 50 metres plus are fairly common in geological time. Like every 300 years or so. In his words – a blink of the eye.
He gave examples of uncontroversial evidence ocean bottom rock thrust onto bluffs and inland as proof positive in both the Mediteranean (spelling?) and also here in Australia – I think he said East Coast.
He also noted a Roman Port that is now inland and 15 m above sea level now. In effect stuff happens. He also said earthquakes are very common like 10,000 a year and appeared to agree with the proposition they are more noteworthy now due to modern communications and increased population.
I think he might have also said we are probably due statistically speaking for such whopper. He also mentioned the energy is such that like Krakatoa – the tsunami bump went round the world … twice and was noticed in England and Europe generally.