Tsunami watch

So who's going to press the button? Central authorities tell communities along the coast to keep an eye out despite new hi-tech alarm system.

Travel down the Andaman Coast and you can't miss them - the 20-metre-tall steel towers with sirens on top, the evacuation directions signs, even standalone weather bureau offices, all built in the past three years as the country's first-ever tsunami warning network.

There's just one problem, no one's clear on who's supposed to push the alarm button. "If you really want to make sure your community's safe, you should put volunteers on lookouts on your beaches every night," Montree Chanachaivi-boonwat, director of the Disaster Management Policy Bureau, told villagers from Ban Nam Khem - the community hardest hit by the 2004 tsunami with about 800 lives lost - during their recent meeting in Phuket.

"No matter how much we want to watch out for you, we're in Bangkok. When the tsunami comes, you'll be the ones getting killed. So if people in your community don't make the sacrifice, who will?"

This point was illustrated quite clearly just three months ago. On September 12, a major 7.9-earthquake struck under the ocean floor in nearly the same spot as the big one that triggered the 2004 Andaman tsunami. While many communities were aware of the earthquake as it occurred during the day, they had no idea whether they should flee or not.

"We closely monitored news about the earthquakes on TV, but there was nobody to help us evaluate the possibility of a tsunami," said Maitree Jongkraijak, a community leader from Ban Nam Khem. "Don't ask me why there was no official warning announcement on TV Pool, but there was one to cancel the warning several hours later. I don't know either," said Waiyapot Worakanok of the National Disaster Warning Centre (NDWC).

Such a cancellation statement coming so late after tsunami warnings had already been issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii to most countries on the Andaman Sea, just added to the communities' lack of faith in the new warning system, said Re Sripimai of Klong Pakbang, the last fishing community remaining on Phuket's Patong Beach. "I remember vividly the horror three years ago. I don't need anyone to tell me what to do, I just ran to a high place with my emergency bag," Re recalled.

"The warning tower? Yes, there's one nearby, but who knows if the system works. What if those sirens are broken because of poor maintenance?"

Low confidence in the central warning system is widespread among communities in the areas affected by the 2004 tsunami, says a recent study entitled "Disaster Risk Reduction: People's Report" compiled by Action Aid. Omitting local consultation in formulating the government's strategic national action plan for 2008-2017 only adds insult to injury, the report said.

"We didn't need all their fancy equipment, nor could we trust it, so we set up our own which works much better," said fellow villager Maitree.

"We also installed new signs to point out evacuation routes because those put up by the government are useless. Some say you have to run 4 kilometres before you can reach a high spot.

Would women, kids and the elderly be able to run that far in time? Our signs are more practical because we know our neighbourhood.

"But what we have would be all useless unless we can trust someone to inform us when a wave is on its way," Maitree added.

The absence of any warning by the government three years ago was seen as a crucial factor in the high death toll. While the Meteorological Department knew of the warning issued from Hawaii, nothing was passed on to the Thai public on December 26.

The NDWC's Waiyapot said when an earthquake occurs, it's the job of the director-general of the Meteorological Department, in his capacity as NDWC director, to issue an evacuation warning.

Waiyapot said it did seem somewhat odd that while the broadcast facility to feed into TV Pool is located in the NDWC's office in Nonthaburi, the head of the Meteorological Department, who is in charge of announcing the warning, sits some 40 kilometres away at the department's headquarters in Bang Na.

The Nation, Thailand