Tsunami drill 'exposes communications problem'

A crucial link in the communications chain to alert top Thai emergency officials of possible tsunamis failed to work today during a simulation of a Pacific region-wide warning system.

Messages from Thailand’s National Disaster Warning Centre sent by SMS to the country’s five top emergency co-ordinators failed to reach their targets or were delayed for hours, said Dr Cherdsak Virapat, the centre’s chief for International Co-ordination.

Thailand was among more than two dozen Pacific and Asian nations countries participating in the first regionwide tsunami warning drill, conducted under the name “Pacific Wave ’06,” by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, a UN agency.

Cherdsak said that faxed bulletins were received normally by the centre from tsunami warning stations in Hawaii and Japan.

According to Thailand’s disaster preparedness plans, the centre is then supposed to inform its five executive directors of the alert by SMS, before informing the prime minister and provincial governors.