City houses INCOIS that forecasts natural disasters

“The Andaman and Nicobar Islands' administration is in the process of putting in place an automated disaster alert system, in a bid to reduce delay in passing of information about approaching natural disasters. The alert system would be directly connected to Hyderabad based Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS),” said Lt Gen AK Singh (retd), Lieutenant Governor, Andaman and Nicobar.

"We would set up the automated disaster alert system within a year or so. Once it is put in place the islands would be able to get signals on natural disasters directly from INCOIS," said Singh.

Listing out the natural disasters which the islands faced since 1881, Singh said that after the signals were received, authorities would swing into action and evacuate the vulnerable people to save their lives. He said the system would help avert the delay caused due to bureaucratic hierarchies in urgent situations.

Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences. Its main office is in Hyderabad at Pragathi Nagar. It provides ocean information and advisory services to different strata of the society such as industry, government and scientific community through sustained ocean observations and constant improvisation of its services by means of systematic and focused research. The facility with INCOIS can analyse wave formation data and issue warnings within 20 minutes.

The first-of-its-kind early warning system for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean was set up in the city on 15 October, 2007. The institute was inaugurated by the then chief minister YS Rajashekhar Reddy and Kapil Sibal, minister for science, technology and earth sciences. The total cost of the project was Rs 125 crore.

At present, the tsunami warning centre receives data from 17 seismic stations of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), 10 stations of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG) and more than 300 international stations. It also receives data from 17 sea-level tide gauges at intervals of five minutes. These tide gauges have been positioned at Aerial Bay, Chennai, Ennore, Garden Reach, Haldia, Kandla, Karwar, Krishnapatnam, Marmagao, Machilipatnam, Nagapattinam, Paradeep, Port Blair, Vadinar, Visakhapatnam and others. Apart from sea-level tide sensors, the wave-rider buoys have also been installed at various locations. This network of tide gauges and buoys, help the center to validate the arrivals of tsunami waves in the Indian Ocean region. To further supplement the cause, a network of seismographs has also been installed at appropriate positions to forecast the occurrence of tsunami-producing earthquakes. It has also installed three bottom pressure recorders in different regions to supplement its needs.

INCOIS’s mission statement: To provide ocean information and advisory services to the society, industry, government and scientific community through sustained ocean observations and constant improvements through systematic and focused research.