ABSTRACT
The 26 December 2004 monster tsunami that struck many South Asian countries, and the severe destruction and devastation wrought by that, have drawn attention to the urgent need for a versatile disaster warning system for the Indian Ocean rim countries. Presence of a network of sealevel gauges spread all along the coasts, with capability for providing real-time information on sea-level elevation and its trend, would provide the requisite data to the disaster management agencies for dissemination of disaster alert warnings to the coastal communities. Immediate alert and related information bulletins disseminated to appropriate local and central disaster management cells and the people by public communication channels such as commercial radio, television, and marine radio system available in almost all these countries, would save many lives. Unfortunately, such a network was not in place during the 26 December 2004 tsunami disaster. This lacuna, together with frequent storms that hit many coastal locations, suggests the urgent need for immediate deployment of a network of real-time integrated sea level and surface meteorological data communication systems (Joseph and Prabhudesai, 2005) for the benefit of the coastal communities, beach tourism agencies, and the local administrators. Given the popularity of Internet on a global scale, providing such state-of-the-art accessibility to sea-level data would mean that the current coastal sea-level scenario can be viewed in real-time from almost any part of the world. If Internet access to the sea-level web site is made available to television channels, then real-time visualization of the coastal sea level (e.g., during anomalous and disastrous state of the coastal seas) and its trend from the previous day to the present instant can be examined by everyone including the common people who are known to make good use of television when anything particularly important happens in any part of the world. Providing Internet accessibility to the sea-level gauge web site at other media centres such as radio stations and the press would also serve an equally important role in the quick dissemination of the current anomalous sealevel scenario to the navigators, and the travelling communities. Such a network would provide useful information also to the mariners sailing in the coastal waters. Moreover, the information obtained would be of great value to the scientific community.
