Attack at dawn

Giant killer waves take people unawares in Chennai and other parts of Asia as thousands perish in the sea. One only wonders why forecasting agencies are ill-equipped in
predicting such calamities that take a heavy toll.

It would be rather crude to ponder over the question whether Chennai will loose its IT sheen due to the impact of the natural calamity. While the loss of men and material is appalling, the larger impact will set in the days ahead. At this point in time, most of the IT heads we spoke to said that it is business as usual and that they will in some way help or contribute for the relief operations. However, if there is a sequel to the tsunami in Chennai, then most companies will surely look beyond the human angle. For instance, the Old Mahabalipuram Road that runs in parallel to the Bay of Bengal is home for all the major IT companies like Cognizant, Infosys and TCS among others. While the sea is actually a good distance away from these IT companies they are unlikely target for tsunamis, but it will open up new questions on Chennai, which is emerging as one of the
safe places to have disaster recovery sites (DRS) as much more bigger tsunamis can travel many miles inland. 

Despite the very low threat perception right now, the fear of tsunamis re-occurring anytime will gain credence. This probably will prompt the companies to move DRS sites, which are near coastal areas in Chennai. While the immediate big fallout on IT is unlikely, as some in the industry draw analogy to the Silicon Valley in California, which itself is situated in an earthquake prone zone and IT thrives there. With IT and other economic fallout being a non-issue at this point in time, one can only hope that Chennai and other parts of the state will pull through from one of the most tragic human disasters to happen in the recent memory that will forever be etched in the sands of time. 

If technology and the tsunami had gone hand-in-hand on December 26, 2004, may be more than 12,000 lives would have been saved all across South-East Asia. In south India, it claimed more than 7,000 lives and scores are still missing till reports last came in. Worst hit was Tamil Nadu and Port Blair. In Chennai´s Marina beach, scores of people have perished. Thousand have disappeared in Cuddalore, Nagapatnam, and Kanyakumari. Even as people here in Chennai come into grips of this mindless fury of nature, at the same time, questions are being asked about the role meteorological agencies play in forecasting such calamities in advance, so that lives can be saved.

Tsunami Warning Systems (TWS) has been in vogue since the 1960s and has been in use in the Pacific Ocean in the US island of Hawaii. The TWS in Honolulu commissioned in 1965 by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) is the fruition of efforts by various countries and predictions are arrived by collaborating with other centers in Chile, France, Japan, and Russia. The TWS predicts an impending Tsunami by closely monitoring the seismic movements and the corresponding sea level increase after significant earthquakes. Over the years, the historical data of tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean has also been mapped and managed by the Novosibirsk Tsunami Laboratory at the Russian Academy of Sciences, enabling the coastal cities in the West to survive a tsunami attack. Unfortunately, the killer tsunami that struck Asian countries is out of the Pacific TWS network. If any of the South-East Asian countries had deployed similar TWS systems and networked other Asian geographies, fatalities would have been on a lesser scale.

The meteorological agencies across the countries spanning Thailand, Malaysia, India had grossly failed in sensing wave patterns in the aftermath of the Sumatra earthquake. Even a simple common sense approach dictates that earthquakes were followed by heightened oceanic activity is missing from the forecasting agencies in predicting this calamity. While earthquakes cannot be predicted in all cases, tidal activities can. While some played the blame game by putting the blame on the met agencies, one has to also factor that seas surrounding south of India are not known for violent behavior and hence nobody might have imagined such a thing. Notwithstanding, all countries, which have a huge coastline, have to implement TWS that not only predicts tsunamis, but also at the same time can give valuable insights on post seismic tidal activities.

Tsunamis can reach speeds of 497 miles per hour when it hits the land. 

SHRIKANTH G 

CHENNAI