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Saturday 28 Dec 2024
LOCAL EDITION
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LOCAL EDITION
Maldives holds the ‘Resilient 20’ exhibition to commemorate 2004 tsunami on December 26, 2024. (Photo/President's Office)
Twenty years ago, on December 26, 2004 the diminutive Maldive islands and its people witnessed the most harrowing and haunting crises the country had ever faced. It was in fact an unprecedented and daunting experience for many, mostly because it had not come with any forewarning.
On the morning of that fateful day, a 9.0 Richter scale earthquake shook Indonesia to devastating impact, and resulting in the formation of a tsunami that would make its way to the Indian Ocean archipelago around 9:20hrs.
The towering waves came crashing into the shores of this low-lying nation, and with it 82 Maldivian citizens lost their lives while 26 have been missing to this date.
The livelihood erected with years of hard-work and diligence was washed away within a few minutes.
While several countries reported varying degrees of the tsunami’s impact, Maldives was among the most heavily impacted as 191 of the country’s islands reported flooding. Some of these islands reported more painful impacts than others; but it was an equally horrific experience for everyone.
In staying true to the essence of ‘better safe than sorry’ the most prevalent approach after such a harrowing experience was to establish a forewarning system that would provide prior alarms to the public to brace and prepare themselves. This was in fact, the biggest lesson for the entire nation following the devastating incident.
An Unexpected Experience
One of the first to experience the impact of the earthquake was Mohamed Rumaiz, a meteorological technician who has been working at the Maldives Meteorological Center for 28 long years. He noticed the tremors around dawn of the incident date. Indonesia was struck by the earthquake around 7:58 hrs for them, which is 5:58 hrs local time.
“Me and two others were on night duty that night, and we would be making an observation around 5:00 hrs. When we were making the said observation, the computers started shaking. We all looked at each other’s face since we never experienced something like that before,” Rumaiz recalled the day.
“It felt like the earth was shaking. But at first, we thought it was because of all the heavy-duty vehicles operating over here, since they give off such vibrations. Yet this was different, so we realized this was something else and in fact, the result of an earthquake. We started to reach and inform our seniors immediately after we realized that,” he added.
They first tried to contract former Director of Meteorology Abdul Muhusin, who served in the office for 44 years. By then some of the locals have started reaching out to the authority after noticing something was off.
“The public was thrown into panic, with many contracting us. I designated myself specifically to answering these calls. But back then we lacked information related to earthquakes of such magnitude and tsunamis, and we did not do such work over here back then either. We lacked the experience even.”
The weather authority lacked sufficient information that can be conveyed to panic-stricken members of the public.
“Muhusin told us to inform the public that we will provide details as soon as we receive any quantified information from foreign authorities, and that we were looking into the matter. It would have been about half an hour when Muhusin called us and said he was unable to make contact with anywhere, and that he tried to contracting Lanka for an update as well. He even tried to contact Malaysia as well, but to no avail,” Rumaiz said.
This was the moment the MET Office graveyard shift employees realized something was gravely afoot, and though various rumors had already spread across local communities, no one really knew what was happening.
“In reality we could not convey any information to the public since we lacked the adequate facilities for that and we had not made contact with any foreign countries. Moments after we learned about the tsunami when news of it was broadcast from a Lankan radio channel. We knew Maldives would get hit by the waves after that.”
“I think it took an approximate of three hours and 25 minutes for the tsunami to reach the Maldives following Indonesia’s earthquake,” Rumaiz added.
After concluding his duty, Rumaiz traveled from Hulhule’ – where his place of work is situated – to Male’ City and witnessed that fish had washed ashore with the waves.
“I guess I did not see any fear in the eyes of the people since Male’ was not hit a second time after the waves flooded the first time,” he said.
The biggest challenge MET Office faced on that day was the lack of sufficient information about the incident and the lack of facilities to forewarn the public. The authority’s seismologist Ibrahim Humaid noted that tsunamis were an entirely new and unprecedented natural phenomenon for them while the country had not been prepared in dealing with such an incident.
“Maldives lacked a forewarning system back when the country experienced the tsunami in 2004. Even for MET, the incident came as a surprise,” Humaid recalled the then condition of the weather forecast authority.
Although Pacific Tsunami Center provides regular tsunami bulletins, it did not provide such information to the Maldives which resulting in the island nation lacking any knowledge about the crisis.
“So MET Office had not provided any information regarding the tsunami or any other incident, to the public. The 2004 tsunami came at a time when we lacked the facilities and were unprepared,” he noted.
An Eye-Opener
Geographically, the Maldives is not situated in a location where tsunamis are common. Even though the region experiences tremors and earthquakes, the chances of Maldives being impacted with a tsunami as an after-effect was unlikely, which had been the reason why there was not foreseeability for such an eventuality.
Humaid said the 2004 tsunami, despite being the most horrible crisis to hit the island nation, had also been an eye-opener for the tropical country.
“The tsunami made us realize that even the Maldives was potentially vulnerable for such natural crises owing to earthquakes or similar phenomena in the region. Since the Maldives is a low-lying country, we realized such waves would have devastating impact on the nation,” Humaid spoke of the lessons they took out of the incident.
“The true lesson we learned was that the Maldives needed to be prepared ahead to deal with such crises, and warn the people beforehand of such possibilities.”
Following the crisis, MET Office was given another responsibility: monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis.
In the following 2005, the authority procured, developed and established facilities and infrastructure that would help them with the said cause. One of the first initiatives under these collective efforts was to introduce the California integrated seismic network to the Maldives, which would help the country identify all seismic activities experienced globally.
This was followed by the establishment of a ‘Real-time Earthquake Monitoring System’.
“The system is linked to the United States Geological Survey, and the system helps us receive information regarding earthquakes from the US authority. The system also provides information about tidal wave changes globally. Besides this, the system was developed to give automatic warnings if it records earthquakes over a certain magnitude,” Humaid explained.
As such, the island nation is now more equipped in observing potential tsunamis, and subsequently better prepared to deal with such eventualities than it was twenty years back.
Diligent Steps in Information Dissemination
Twenty years back, MET failed to adequately communicate the information to the public while the communication itself was interrupted.
In the aftermath, authorities began establishing their respective hotlines to ensure easier communication between them in the event of a similar crisis. The first authorities with their designated hotlines include:
In 2006, regional tsunami watches were established in India, Australia, and Indonesia to better prepare for such a crisis in the future, and enhance the capability of monitoring the region for natural disasters. In 2007, seismo-meters were installed in various parts of the Maldives.
“This is linked to the main hub in Jakarta via a satellite connection, which means Maldives would receive real-time update of earthquakes experienced by any part of the country,” Humaid added.
In 2008, Maldives authorities established ‘Sys-Com’ to enhance faster communication and conveyance of information to the public. The system provides real-time updates of earthquakes experienced anywhere in the world.
Humaid noted that after completing these expansion efforts, the authority was able to provide information to the public, related to tsunamis, since 2011.
“We have established close communication channels with the centers in this region, and we receive these updates through global telecommunication channels whether it is via an SMS, email, RS Feed, and through various media,” Humaid added.
He also pointed out to the role of satellites in monitoring tsunamis, noting their roles are less significant but are seldom utilized in monitoring changes to the climate. He further highlighted that the authority had developed standard operational procedures (SOPs) in the event of tsunamis or other natural disasters.
“For instance, we can identify long waves via satellite and we are able to identify topological changes in the aftermath of tsunamis and earthquakes via satellite.”
He emphasized on the evolution and expansion of the weather forecast authority, which has become extensively capable in providing prior warnings before similar phenomena occurred.
Today, MET Office is functioning at an entirely different standard with the facilitation of the latest state-of-the-art technology.
“Compared to back then, we have observed monumental growth and change. We now have the capability of monitoring tsunamis and earthquakes,” Humaid expressed his confidence.
It is without a doubt, that the biggest evolution was experienced by MET Office in the twenty years that followed after the devastating crisis. The weather forecast authority, which previously only provided information regarding rainfall and wind is now capable of foreseeing potential natural disasters.
This truly was the biggest lesson from the harrowing incident that changed the status quo of the island nation.
