Exercise ‘Pacific Wave’ Tests Tsunami Preparedness

Irish Weather Online
October 27, 2011

A Pacific-wide tsunami drill will take place from the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia to Chile in South America on 9-10 November, 2011. The purpose of Exercise Pacific Wave 11 is to improve local and regional source tsunami warning and response capability in the Pacific.

According to International Coordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific (ICG/ITSU), which was set up following the 9.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in Chile in 1960, the exercise provides an opportunity for Pacific countries to exercise their operational lines of communications, review their tsunami response procedures, and promote emergency preparedness.

Most of the world’s earthquakes and tsunamis occur in the Pacific Ocean and its marginal seas. On average, the Pacific is struck by a locally damaging tsunami every year or two, and by a major Pacific-wide tsunami a few times each century.

Over the past three years (2009–2011), the Pacific witnessed three destructive and deadly tsunamis that each placed PTWS (Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System) countries in various levels of warning for distant tsunamis. Locally, five countries were impacted nearly immediately with people having only 10 to 30 minutes before the first large waves hit.

On 29 September 2009, Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga were hit by the largest deadly tsunami since the 1998 Sissano, Papua New Guinea, event. Altogether, 192 lives were lost locally.

This was followed, five months later by the 27 February 2010 Chile tsunami where 124 lives were lost. And one year later, the Pacific and the world watched the 11 March 2011 Japan tsunami devastate the Honshu coastlines within 30 minutes claiming tens of thousands of lives.

Exercise Pacific Wave 11 will be held on 9 and 10 November 2011, and will involve multiple scenarios, played out in real time, to allow all Pacific countries to select and exercise a regional/local source tsunami event.

The exercise scenarios include major tsunamis generated by great earthquakes in the following areas:

- Kamchatka (Kuril–Kamchatka Trench)
- Ryukyu Islands (Nansei–Shoto Trench)
- Philippines–South China Sea (Manila Trench)
- Philippines–Pacific Ocean (Philippines Trench)
- Vanuatu (New Hebrides Trench)
- Tonga (Tonga Trench)
- Northern Chile (Peru–Chile Trench)
- Ecuador (Colombia–Ecuador Trench)
- Central America (Middle America Trench)
- Aleutian Islands (Aleutian Trench)

 

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