Post-Tsunami: India learnt its lesson by developing early warning system

Hyderabad, Dec 24: A decade after the Indian Ocean tsunami hit several countries in the Asia-Pacific region killing over 200,000 people, India has not only developed an effective early warning system but is also capable of providing advisories to 25 countries on the Indian Ocean rim. Learning its lesson from the disaster, India has set up a centre capable of detecting the tsunamigeneic earthquakes and issuing tsunami warnings based on the seismic information in less than 10 minutes after the occurrence of earthquake in the Indian Ocean. Established in 2007 at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) monitors tsunamis and provides timely advisories leaving a response time of about 10-20 minutes even for a near source region in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and a few hours for the mainland.