Central
Chile yesterday was hit by a series of severe earthquakes. The major one off Concepcion
on Feb 27, 06:34 UTC had a magnitude of 8.8. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center PTWC in
Hawaii, USA issued a regional warning at 06:46. The first sea level
measurements at Valparaiso with 1.3 m and Talcahuano with 2.3 m confirmed a
tsunami had been generated. PTWC revised and extended the affected region at
09:47. At 10:45 UTC the PTWC warned of a Pacific wide tsunami and subsequent
hourly messages expanded the warning to several areas in the Pacific
Ocean. Every hour the system coordinated by UNESCO and operated by
national agencies kept updating the established tsunami warning focal points
and media accessing the system. From Galapagos (1.0 m in Santa Cruz) to
Marquise Islands (1.8 m), or from Malibu (1.4 m) to Valparaiso (1.3 m) a near-real time sea level
monitoring system enabled emergency response agencies to order evacuation
or to warn locals about the risk of tsunami.
This
is the first real scale test of a system that was put in place nearly 50 years ago
by UNESCO’s Member States through its Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission (IOC), when a 9.5 magnitude earthquake on May 22, 1960 off Chile on
the Pacific Rim generated a tsunami heavily affecting Hilo in Hawaii or Sanriku
coast of Japan. It led to the establishment of the Pacific Tsunami
Warming System PTWS, operating since 1965 under the mandate of IOC-UNESCO. In
the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami on Dec 26, 2004, building on this
experience, IOC-UNESCO established similar systems for the Indian Ocean, the
Caribbean and the seas around Europe to ensure a global cover for tsunami
hazards.
Click on the image to see full size representation of sea level observations by sealevel gauges (from the Sea Level Station Monitoring Service http://www.ioc-sealevelmonitoring.org/ service provided by IOC /VLIZ, Oostende, Belgium )
- Details
-
Created on: Sunday, 28 February 2010 15:24
-
Last Updated on: Monday, 01 July 2013 12:20
