Author name: Dilanthi_A

Professor Siri Hettige of Unviersity of Colombo discusses the impact of the international project ASCENT to the disaster management sector of Sri Lanka, under the theme climate change, natural disasters and societal resilience.

The world’s leading climate scientists have sounded the warning call, giving us an ultimatum to change the world. In October this year, we were given 12 years to change; to change the way we think and the way we consume — simply put, the way we live.

Countries around the Indian Ocean are benefitting from the experience and advice of Professors Dilanthi Amaratunga and Richard Haigh on how they best prepare to cope with a potentially disastrous tsunami.

An estimated 270,000 people in the region of the Indian Ocean died as a result of the undersea earthquake that struck off the northern tip of Sumatra in Indonesia on 26 December 2004. The 9.1 magnitude quake set off a tsunami that devastated coastal regions in over 20 countries, and reached as far away as Tanzania and South Africa.

The Building Resilience Conference is an annual international conference exploring resilience as a useful framework of analysis for how society can cope with the threat of natural and human induced hazards. The 2018 edition is organised by the University of Lisbon, the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and the Global Disaster Resilience Centre at the University of Huddersfield (UK), in association with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).

No offense to those who take disasters seriously (and we all should, let me add). No offense to the serious matter of disaster management. The headline was picked, I confess, from a serious interview with a serious academic about a serious subject.

Dilanthi Amaratunga, Professor of Disaster Risk Management, University of Huddersfield, UK, and a leading expert on the subject of disaster resilience, while discussing challenges, opportunities and other related concerns stated recently, ‘we cannot be complacent about disaster management.’

A record 115,000 people in the Indian Ocean region evacuated during the tsunami exercise Indian Ocean Wave 2018 (IOWave18) conducted on 4-5 September 2018. The exercise was coordinated by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) as part of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigations System (IOTWMS). Exercise IOWave18 involved enacting two scenarios – a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the southern coast of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a magnitude 9.3 earthquake off the western coast of Northern Sumatra on the 4th and 5th September respectively. In addition to testing standard operating procedures and communication links at all levels of the tsunami warning chain, a primary objective of IOWave18 was to enhance tsunami preparedness at community level including evacuation procedures. To this end, all Member States[1] were encouraged to use Exercise IOWave 18 as an opportunity to evaluate Indian Ocean Tsunami Ready (IOTR)[2] indicators in pilot communities, following the IOTR guidelines.

A record 115,000 people in the Indian Ocean region evacuated during the tsunami exercise Indian Ocean Wave 2018 (IOWave18) conducted on 4-5 September 2018.
The exercise was coordinated by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) as part of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigations System (IOTWMS). Exercise IOWave18 involved enacting two scenarios – a
magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the southern coast of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a magnitude 9.3 earthquake off the western coast of Northern Sumatra on the 4th
and 5th September respectively.