Twenty-four Indian Ocean countries have participated in a large scale IOWave16 tsunami simulation exercise on 7 and 8 September 2016.

A video of the side event on 'Building Regional Tsunami Awareness' that was organized in the context of enhancing preparedness efforts and was aimed at policymakers and tsunami experts.

Tsunamis can be extremely deadly: in the past 100 years, more than 260,000 people have perished in 58 separate tsunamis. The UN General Assembly has designed 5 November as World Tsunami Awareness Day.