All 19 Phuket tsunami warning towers fully operational following tremors in Andaman Sea

[webfact]

Picture: Thai Rath

 

The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said that all 19 tsunami warning towers in Phuket were fully operational.

 

The alarms were loud and warnings could be issued in five languages including Thai, English, Chinese and Russian, reported Thai Rath. 

 

This followed dozens of tremors reported by Thai seismologists that emanated from the area of the Andaman Islands, owned by India, and Myanmar around 400-500 kms from Thailand from Monday evening through Tuesday. 

 

A drill is set to take place in Thalang on July 20th when evacuation routes and procedures will be updated according to disaster mitigation plans. 

 

Phuket and large swathes of southern Thailand on the Andaman coast were badly hit in the Asian Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004

 

Thousands of Thais and tourists died mainly in Phuket, Phangnga and Krabi in the tragedy that claimed around 220,000 lives in Asia and even as far away as Africa. 

 

After the tragedy warning devices were installed in the sea and on land and signage can be seen throughout Phuket. 

 

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[Enzian]

So are these "tremors" what caused the recent shoreline flooding on Phuket, or was that a coincidence? 

[Tropposurfer]

7 hours ago, Enzian said:

So are these "tremors" what caused the recent shoreline flooding on Phuket, or was that a coincidence? 

That was a pretty weird nature-thing huh! 

[beechbum]

10 hours ago, Enzian said:

So are these "tremors" what caused the recent shoreline flooding on Phuket, or was that a coincidence? 

I've seen it happen at Kalim a few times over the year's.

[oldcpu]

Unfortunately, according to Thaiger news, the two Thai maintained Tsunami buoys in the Andaman sea are not at present functioning and they won't be functioning until November this year.  

 

So its nice the warning towers are fully operational, but from where will they get their warning if the Tsunami buoys are not functioning?  Every time there is an earth quake at some TBD size do they put out a warning?  Cause an evacuation with no confirmation from a Buoy? 

 

Or does India have Tsunami buoys far from their area of concern in the Andaman sea?  I seriously doubt that Myanmar has operational Tsunami buoys.  Given there is typically only 20-to-30-minutes warning from a Tsunami buoy, even if India has some, how long will it take them to notify Thailand so that Thailand can act?

 

My hope the above has all been considered and appropriate measures in place, but thus far other than notes that Tsunami buoys not working, but the warning towers are functional, does not provide me that much confidence.  I wish more detail was provided on link from earth quake to the actual warning  (to give confidence that the Tsunami buoys were not needed).

[hotchilli]

20 hours ago, Enzian said:

So are these "tremors" what caused the recent shoreline flooding on Phuket, or was that a coincidence? 

Or a misunderstanding.

[simon43]

Here is the link to the real-time data map for global tsunami buoys.  As you can see (by clicking on the red diamonds), the Thai buoy in the Andaman Sea is not sending data (and hasn't been sending data for sometime).

 

Also, all the other tsunami buoys on that map in the Indian Ocean are out of action as well.... 

 

Were there a tsunami in that region, and if the tsunami buoys were working, there should be adequate warning time to avoid loss of life on land. (A tsunami wave moves very fast, say 300km/hour. But it can be 1,000 Km+ from the undersea earthquake location to the nearest land point).

 

I'm not sure where the Thai tsunami warning towers get their data from right now - the data from the buoy has to be checked anyway before warning of a possible tsunami is sent out by email/IP by NOAA in the USA.

 

Why does the Thai tsunami buoy keep failing?  (It's a regular occurrence every few years).  Well, the excuse is always the same >> the batteries need replacing!!  Seems that preventative maintenance is not a strongpoint of the Thai authorities...

 

https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/obs.shtml?lat=13&lon=-173&zoom=2&pgm=tsunami

Edited July 20, 2022 by simon43