How Do the Thailand People Prepare if a Tsunami Ever Hits Again

Tsunamis are a terrifying phenomenon.

They have claimed lives, demolished homes and destroyed communities across the world. In the past 100 years, 58 tsunamis have killed more than 260,000 people, higher than any other natural hazard.

Tsunamis are a series of enormous waves usually started by earthquakes beneath or about the ocean. They can be also caused past volcanic eruptions, submarine landslides, and littoral rock falls, or fifty-fifty a big asteroid.

Did you know that the give-and-take 'seismic sea wave' combines the Japanese words 'tsu' (harbour) and 'nami' (wave)?

They can't exist predicted, and often come with very little warning.

The first sign is that the ocean begins to retreat. Then the waves come crashing back – up to 30 metres high and travelling more than than 800 kilometres per hour.

More than lxx percentage of all tsunamis ever recorded have been in the Pacific Sea effectually the earthquake-decumbent "Pacific Ring of Burn".

The Indian Bounding main tsunami of Dec 2004 caused an estimated 227,000 deaths in 14 countries. Caused by an underwater quake that was equivalent in power to 23,000 diminutive bombs, it was the deadliest seismic sea wave in contempo decades. Republic of indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were the hardest hit.

In the Asia Pacific region, thousands of people accept lost their lives to tsunamis. A lack of cognition, awareness and grooming played a significant function in increasing the numbers of dead and injured.

Better rubber than sorry

Partnering with the Government of Japan, UNDP began working with xc schools to assess their tsunami risks, design emergency procedures and evacuation plans a bear out seismic sea wave awareness and safe drills in 18 Asia Pacific countries in 2017. More than 100 schools and 60,000 people participated.

Since 2017, more 158,461 students and teachers accept taken function in the drills in 358 schools in 23 countries.

Teachers and students were trained so that they're prepared when the next tsunami hits. Equally well as evacuation and safe drills, the project has identified at-adventure schools and created a number of education materials, identified evacuation routes and shelters, and adult a mobile app, STEP-A, to assess preparedness, too equally a guide which shows schoolhouse administrators how to prepare for, and respond to, a tsunami.

The project focused on the virtually vulnerable coastal communities of 23 countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Kiribati, Malaysia, Maldives, Micronesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Viet Nam.

Paw in mitt

Local communities and governments have been enthusiastic, calculation innovation and partnerships to the mix. In Fiji, the drills tested the mobile awarding GeoBing App, which gave existent time data for early warning, paving the way for the first national tsunami drill. In Samoa, virtual reality headsets were used to prepare children for drills, so they could find out what their surround would look like under water. And in Bali, Indonesia, eight hotels signed up to exist safe areas in tsunami emergencies, shifting from school preparedness to the whole community.

In Pakistan, the drills were combined with shoreline cleaning to highlight the importance of the environs in preparing for disasters. In Viet Nam the government is including disaster education in its school curriculum. In Myanmar older students were taught to take care of younger ones during evacuation.

"We only knew the discussion 'tsunami'. Afterward the drill today, we now know how to react and respond in the event of a disaster. We were given a training in what to do in case of an injury."

— Five. Manesha, Sri Lanka

Evacuation drills in different countries

"Nihon has experienced and recovered from countless natural disasters. This is vital, and our responsibility, to share these experiences and skills around the earth, and relieve as many lives as possible," says Ms Satomi Okagaki, Senior Deputy Managing director, Global Issues Cooperation Segmentation, of the Japan Ministry building of Foreign Affairs.

In Japan every school child knows what to exercise when a tsunami hits.

"Nosotros promise this project serves every bit a good starting point from which tsunami awareness and preparedness, seismic sea wave evacuation drills will take root," Ms Okagaki says.

In preparing for a natural hazard, the more than people who participate the meliorate. After the tragic feel of Haiyan in 2013, the strongest typhoon in the history of the Philippines, parents and caregivers were willing to participate in the drills, showing the importance of partnering not only with the local Department of Education, but besides with the community, and defining clear roles and communication channels. 20 schools and xx,000 people took function.

Prepare to act

There'south a powerful element of inequality in natural hazards and disasters, such equally tsunamis. They disproportionately affect poorer nations, and women and children. Up to eighty percent of the fatalities from the Indian Ocean tsunami were women and children.

Disasters bulldoze 26 million people into poverty every twelvemonth and cost the global economy an estimated Usa$ 520 billion, according to UNDRR. Yet preparation not only saves lives it also saves coin — for every dollar invested in disaster preparedness and prevention, many more are saved in recovery.

This regional project is part of UNDP's efforts to implement the Sendai Framework of Disaster Risk Reduction, a global initiative to work with local governments to reduce deaths, injuries and economical impairment from natural and human-made hazards, and prevent them from becoming disasters.

The project'southward 2d phase, which started in Dec 2019, integrated tsunami preparedness and drills into school curricula and expanded to 20 countries as of 2020.

The third stage of the project, which farther strengthens institutional preparedness, began in August 2021 in 16 countries.

"We have learned well how to help set our students, and we know how to lead students to a rubber evacuation place. We volition include these learnings when we draw our school future planning program."

— Daw Aye Mon Kyi, an banana teacher from Myanmar

Preparing Asia Pacific schools

(ane June 2017 – thirty October 2019)

158 461

students, teachers and school administrators participated in the drills

358

schools have organized seismic sea wave educational activity, adult evacuation plans, conducted drills

23

countries have actively engaged

Between 1998 and 2017, climate and geophysical disasters--mostly earthquakes and tsunamis--killed 1.3 meg people and left a farther 4.4 billion injured, homeless, displaced or in need of emergency aid.

1998

2017

1.3 One thousand thousand 4.4 BILLION

Conducting a drill requires grooming, cognition of surroundings and evacuation areas, and how to stay safe. Decisions made in the few minutes earlier that racing wave reaches you lot tin mean the divergence between life and expiry.

The evidence is clear: preparation saves lives. Thousands of school children who live in coastal areas across Asia and the Pacific Islands volition larn the drill. And when you teach children, they teach everyone else.

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Source: https://feature.undp.org/lessons-for-life/

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