Phuket Tsunami Buoy Won't Be Redeployed In 2010

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Phuket tsunami buoy won't be redeployed in 2010

The new tsunami detection buoy after it was deployed late last year.

File photo.

PHUKET: -- Thailand’s Andaman Coast will be without tsunami direct detection capability when the sixth anniversary of the 2004 disaster arrives in late December, the Gazette has learned.

Aurasa Paenghom, general manager of Bangkok-based firm Raydant International, which built and maintains Thailand’s tsunami early warning system, estimates that it will take several months before the tsunami buoy that went adrift in early June can be redeployed in its old position, 600 nautical miles northwest of Phuket.

Raydant, which runs the system under a contract with the National Disaster Warning Center, said the company has already placed a request with the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) for funds to purchase 4,500 meters of replacement cable to moor the buoy to the seabed some 3,000 meters beneath the surface.

Once funding is approved, the special cable must be manufactured abroad and shipped to Thailand. It will take the company three months to produce the cable and another month for shipping, she said.

Ms Aurasa thinks the damage to the buoy suggests that a large vessel tied up to it, causing the cable to snap under the increased force. The buoy itself was not badly damaged, she said.

The mishap reduces to zero the number of functioning tsunami direct detection units off the Thai coast.

The Indian government has installed a small network off its coast, but it is not part of the US Government’s National Data Buoy Center, which allows anyone to monitor water column and tsunami event data in real time over the Internet.

Three high-tech tsunami direct detection units were donated to Thailand and Indonesia by the US government after the tsunami, but all are now either lost or inoperable due to damage or lack of maintenance.

The original Thai buoy fell silent after going three years without a battery change, even though the unit was designed to require a new battery every year.

It was replaced late last year by a new buoy paid for by the Thai government, just in time for the fifth anniversary of the tsunami.

-- Phuket Gazette 2010-09-24

[ratio]

Ms Aurasa thinks the damage to the buoy suggests that a large vessel tied up to it, causing the cable to snap under the increased force. The buoy itself was not badly damaged, she said.

The mishap reduces to zero the number of functioning tsunami direct detection units off the Thai coast.

There should be a piority on establishing these bouys as soon as possible. Doesnt take much effort to repair these bouys if they really wanted too.

[angiud]

Clowns

[animatic]

Pathetic in the extreme.

[Bagwan]

Clowns

A large vessel tied up to the buoy?  Why tie anything to a buoy 600 k's offshore? It is more likely that any anchoring device was not up to the job. 

P.S. MY 10 year old niece knows how to change a battery - and why a battery needs replacing from time to time. I propose that anybody owning a motor vehicle is also in possession of this very basic information. 

[contemplating]

Well, if the US government donated the buoy, why didnt they promise to change the batteries every year?? They should have known This is Thailand. Thats what happens everywhere in the world that something is donated. The receiver thinks that since its free, you dont have to take care of it.

[SamKong]

i don't know what all the fuss is about. this bureaucratic malfeasance is well and truly par for the course. we might as well be commenting on the sun rising today.

[Jimi007]

Aurasa Paenghom, general manager of Bangkok-based firm Raydant International, which built and maintains Thailand’s tsunami early warning system, estimates that it will take several months before the tsunami buoy that went adrift in early June can be redeployed in its old position, 600 nautical miles northwest of Phuket.

Ah, no wonder the system doesn't work! The same company that built the warning towers that don't all work and aren't loud enough is in charge of maintaining the buoys too. Good luck to us all. I seem to remember the US tried to call and warn Thailand of the 9.0 earthquake may cause the 2004 tsunami hours before the tsunami hit, but no one answered the calls... Hopefully they will answer the phone the next time as they can't take care of the now nonexistent system here...

I think it may be time to hire a non Thai company that can do the job they are paid to do.