CHENNAI: If technology and tsunami had gone hand in hand on December 26, 2004, may be more than 12,000 lives would have been saved all across South-East Asia. The killer tsunami that also struck South India, claimed more than 7000 lives and scores are still missing till reports last came in.

Worst hit was Tamil Nadu and Port Blair. In Chennai's Marina beach, scores of people have perished. Thousands have disappeared in Cuddalore, Nagapatnam, and Kanyakumari. Even as people in Chennai come into grips of this mindless fury of nature, questions are being asked about the role metrological agencies play in forecasting such calamities in advance.

Tsunami Warning Systems (TWS) has been in vogue since the 1960's and has been in use in the Pacific Ocean in the US island of Hawaii. The TWS in Honolulu commissioned in 1965 by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) is the fruition of efforts by various countries and predictions are arrived by collaborating with other centers in Chile, France, Japan, and Russia.

The TWS predicts an impending Tsunami by closely monitoring the seismic movements and the corresponding sea level increase after significant earthquakes. Over the years the historical data of tsunamis in Pacific Ocean has also been mapped and managed by the Novosibirsk Tsunami Laboratory at the Russian Academy of Sciences enabling the coastal cities in the West to survive a tsunami attack. Unfortunately, the killer tsunami that stuck the Asian countries is out of the Pacific TWS network. If any of the South East Asian countries had deployed similar TWS systems and networked other Asian geographies, fatalities would have been on a lesser scale.

Need better forecasting
The metrological agencies across the countries spanning Thailand, Malaysia, India had grossly failed in sensing wave patterns in the aftermath of the Sumatra earthquake. Even a simple common sense approach that earthquakes were followed by heightened oceanic activity is missing from the forecasting agencies in predicting this calamity. While earthquakes cannot be predicted in all cases, tidal activities can. While, some put the blame game on the met agencies one has to also factor that seas surrounding South India are not known for violent behavior and hence, nobody might have imagined such a thing will actually happen here. Notwithstanding, all countries, which have a huge coastline, have to implement TWS that not only predicts tsunamis, but also at the same time can give valuable insights on post seismic tidal activities.

The need for TWS in India is most pressing, considering the mind-boggling speed and violence of the tsunami. For instance, tsunamis can reach speeds of 497 miles per hour when it hits land. During the tsunami that hit Chile in 1960, the waves reached Japan within 24 hours, which is 10,439 miles from Chile. The tsunami that hit south India clearly demonstrates that coastal regions are vulnerable to such calamities and an earthquake in any one of the hundreds of islands in the Indian Ocean region might trigger tsunamis in the future. Irrespective of the future tsunami threats, India should learn from the current crisis and adopt a strategy for reacting to such calamities in the future.

The IT impact
It would be rather crude to ponder over the question as to whether Chennai will loose its IT sheen due to the impact of the natural calamity. While the loss of men and material is appalling, the larger impact will set in the days ahead. At this point in time, most of the IT heads we spoke to said that it is business as usual and that they will in some way help or contribute towards the relief operations.

However, if there is a sequel to the tsunami in Chennai, then most companies will surely look beyond the human angle. For instance, the Old Mahabalipuram Road that runs parallel to the Bay of Bengal is home to major IT companies like Cognizant, Infosys and TCS among others. As the sea is actually, a good distance away from these IT companies, they are an unlikely target for tsunamis. But, Chennai can lose its impression of being a 'safe place' to set up disaster recovery sites (DRS) as bigger tsunamis than this, can travel many miles inland.

Despite the very low threat perception right now, the fear of tsunamis re-occurring anytime will gain credence. This probably will prompt the companies to move DRS sites, which are near coastal areas in Chennai. However, an immediate fallout on IT is unlikely as some in the industry draw analogy to the Silicon Valley in California, which itself is situated in an earthquake prone area. With IT and other economic consequences being secondary, at this point in time, one can only hope that Chennai and other parts of the state and country, will pull through one of the most tragic human disasters to occur in the recent times.