Hi All,

I think you'll find this foreign press story rather interesting as it says the warning was a result of someone in India reading something from an Internet site and more interesting is how they handled the information.....Petra

It is understandable that after the sudden and unexpected devastation wrought by the tsunami that struck Sunday before last, the authorities would not have risked the slightest chance with warnings about a second coming. That must be precisely why the Union Home Ministry rushed to send fax messages on Thursday to Chief Secretaries of southern coastal States, warning them that another tsunami may hit the Indian Ocean area in the afternoon and they should put their administrative machineries on alert. It also called for making the shoreline inaccessible up to a distance of two kilometres inland and evacuating people. Unfortunately, while the Ministry's intentions were undoubtedly good, the road to confusion is often paved by good intentions. This is exactly what happened last Thursday.

The tsunami never materialised, but survivors of the December 26 disaster, who had found refuge in relief centres or were trying to find ways of repairing or rebuilding their devastated homes, had to flee again. Also, relief work, which, in some areas, had just started picking up after three days of efforts to put a delivery mechanism in place, was interrupted again as relief workers had themselves to withdraw to safer places, and the emphasis shifted from assistance to evacuation.

What makes the Home Ministry's action in issuing an alert particularly vulnerable to criticism is the flimsy basis on which it was taken and the infirmities it revealed in its decision-making process in times of crises. It all started when a web-surfing Ministry official found a site which quoted a certain Australian Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre sounding an alert about another tsunami striking India. He immediately brought this to the notice of his superiors and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil.

One can hardly blame him for doing what he did and Mr Patil for calling for a high-level inter-departmental meeting, in which even the Indian Meteorological Department was represented. What warrants concern is the meeting's failure to assess the information properly. It reflects the Ministry's inability to assess the warning or contact any of the 26 countries that constitute the International Group for the Tsunami Warning System (IGTWS) or lack of realisation of the need to do so. While the Ministry has done poorly in either case, its lapse is all the more serious if it had not even thought of consulting members of the IGTWS.

Understandably, there has been criticism of the Union Home Ministry's action and the utter lack of coordination between it and the Union Ministry of Science and Technology which the gaffe reflects. If the criticism has not been as sharp as it would have been on other occasions, it is because of the realisation that recriminations should be avoided at a time like this when the focus of the entire nation must be on providing relief to the stricken, and that it should stand united in dealing with the disaster. That, however, does not condone the Home Ministry's blunder. Nor can it obscure the need to set up an effective disaster management system without delay.

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• The Pioneer