Tsunamis’ destructive force presents a great risk for lives and livelihoods in the exposed areas in Asia and the Pacific. Considering the infrequent low probability but high consequence – nature of Tsunami, regular exercises are essential to enhance awareness and preparedness of stakeholder agencies, community organizations and citizens groups to work together to prepare for the evacuation after a tsunami warning is issued by national and local authorities. Indian Ocean-wide tsunami exercises, such as the IOWave16 have proven to be effective for evaluating the readiness of the IOTWS and to identify improvements.
This Tsunami Preparedness Platform is a collaborative effort of United Nations ESCAP, the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG), the Indian Ocean Tsunami Information Centre (IOTIC) and the Indonesian National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB), in part realized through generous funding by the Government of Japan.