Alert in Tonga

Tsunami. The word itself embodies fear and alarm. That a warning was issued to the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Tonga,an archipelago of 171 islands in the Pacific,is enough to get people talking. Given that it is part of the so-called ring of fire,the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and the New Zealand Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences responded within minutes of the quake,sending out warnings to neighbouring islands. The tsunami alert was cancelled six minutes after the initial warning,displaying exactly how coordinated the actions of the Pacific Centre are.

One cannot help but remember the disaster caused by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami,which wreaked havoc across Indonesia,Sri Lanka,India and Thailand. Could it have been prevented? No. Would it have been possible to avert as much damage? No. Simply put,the states on the Indian Ocean were unprepared. No tsunami warning system was in place monitoring the Indian Ocean; in fact more often than not,data was gathered from the Pacific. Things have improved since; the international community,in a concerted effort,worked towards putting together a regional tsunami alert system for the Indian Ocean. By 2006 the UN had succeeded in putting up an interim alert system.

Then the 2006 tsunami,minor in comparison,hit Indonesia,and the ill-preparedness of the Indian Ocean interim warning system became evident. The problem lay in the politics of the power: the centre,apparently neutral,was beset with regional rivalries. The good news however is that cooperation as an option can never be exhausted and this can be seen through the work of the Group on Earth Observations. All countries prone to underwater eruptions are represented in this NGO; in many ways,it shows that when we coordinate and work harmoniously as a people,our relationship with nature can nourish us.