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Journalism of Courage
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.
