On No­vem­ber 5, 2019, World Tsuna­mi Aware­ness Day will be ob­served glob­al­ly.

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) will com­mem­o­rate the day across Trinidad and To­ba­go. Tsunamis while rare for Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­main a haz­ard for which all cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es must be pre­pared at all times.

En­sur­ing that you know what to do be­fore, dur­ing and af­ter a tsuna­mi can re­duce you and your fam­i­ly's chances of in­jury and al­low for a quick re­cov­ery.

What do we know about tsunamis?

The Na­tion­al Ocean­ic and At­mos­pher­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion has de­fined a tsuna­mi as a se­ries of waves caused by an earth­quake, un­der­sea vol­canic erup­tion or sub­ma­rine land­slide. Waves em­a­nat­ing from a tsuna­mi can reach as high as 100 feet, de­stroy­ing coast­lines and in­un­dat­ing coastal com­mu­ni­ties lead­ing to death, as well as, eco­nom­ic and eco­log­i­cal loss­es. Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice for Dis­as­ter Risk Re­duc­tion (UN­DRR), in the past 100 years, more than 260,000 peo­ple have per­ished in 58 sep­a­rate tsunamis events.

Com­mu­ni­ties re­sid­ing on the coast or in low line ar­eas can ex­pe­ri­ence these waves with lit­tle or no warn­ing, and with­in min­utes of a pow­er­ful earth­quake. Sim­i­lar to earth­quakes, tsunamis can oc­cur at any time, day or night. As such, it is im­por­tant for every­one to know what to do in the event of a tsuna­mi and how they can stay safe.

How can we pre­pare?

•Learn and Prac­tice the Drop Cov­er Hold (DCH) tech­nique to pro­tect your­self dur­ing an Earth­quake.

•Learn the warn­ing signs of a tsuna­mi and en­sure that fam­i­ly mem­bers can iden­ti­fy these signs as well.

•En­sure that you have emer­gency sup­plies in a grab and go bag that is easy to car­ry and al­ways at hand. Emer­gency sup­plies would in­clude a stur­dy pair of shoes, food, wa­ter, med­ica­tion (where nec­es­sary), flash­light, whis­tle, hy­giene items and a change of cloth­ing.

•You and your fam­i­ly should be aware of the Tsuna­mi evac­u­a­tion routes if you live in a coastal area.

•Prac­tice reg­u­lar­ly your evac­u­a­tion plan and map the routes out of your home, school and place of work. En­sure that you add to your plan, evac­u­a­tion shel­ters that are above sea lev­el or at least one mile in­land.

•Cre­ate a fam­i­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan so that if sep­a­rat­ed from your fam­i­ly dur­ing a tsuna­mi every­one knows what to do and how to com­mu­ni­cate. En­sure that you choose a safe place for re­uni­fi­ca­tion that's in­land. You can down­load and fill out a fam­i­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan here http://www.odpm.gov.tt/fam­i­ly­commu­ni­ca­tion

•Car­ry a fam­i­ly pho­to with you at all times to as­sist first re­spon­ders in lo­cat­ing your loved ones.

What should you do to pro­tect your­self and stay safe?

The abil­i­ty to pro­vide ear­ly warn­ing no­ti­fi­ca­tion for a tsuna­mi is de­pen­dent on where the Tsuna­mi orig­i­nates. If it is a lo­cal tsuna­mi, the like­li­hood of re­ceiv­ing ear­ly warn­ing no­ti­fi­ca­tion be­comes slim as waves can start im­pact­ing coastal and low line ar­eas in un­der 20 min­utes. In light of this, it be­comes im­por­tant for every­one to know what to do in the event of a tsuna­mi.

If you feel an earth­quake, your first ac­tion should be to Drop, Cov­er and Hold on (DCH) to pro­tect your­self from pos­si­ble in­jury. If you are at the beach, along the coast or in a low line area dur­ing an earth­quake, DCH and as soon as the shak­ing stops and get to high­er ground, at least 100 me­ters above sea lev­el.

Warn­ing signs of an im­pend­ing tsuna­mi in­cludes:

•A rapid fall in sea lev­els that ex­pos­es the sea bed or seafloor.

•A loud roar com­ing from the ocean; tsuna­mi sur­vivors have de­scribed this as the sound of an on­com­ing freight train.

•An­i­mals act­ing strange­ly.

At the on­set of any of these signs, evac­u­ate im­me­di­ate­ly and get as far in­land as pos­si­ble or to high­er ground. Do not wait. En­sure that you know your tsuna­mi evac­u­a­tion routes.

Sig­nage and evac­u­a­tion routes for tsunamis are es­tab­lished by the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units in Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions where tsunamis are a known risk to the com­mu­ni­ty. Evac­u­a­tion routes are of­ten marked by a wave with an ar­row in the di­rec­tion of high­er ground.

If you are in a boat, face the di­rec­tion of the waves and head fur­ther out to sea. If you are in the har­bour, then move in­land as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

If you are out­side of the tsuna­mi zone and re­ceive a warn­ing or alert, then stay where you are un­less of­fi­cials tell you oth­er­wise.

Stay safe af­ter the tsuna­mi: The af­ter­math of a tsuna­mi can be dev­as­tat­ing as such pay at­ten­tion to lo­cal alerts and in­for­ma­tion from au­tho­rised agen­cies such as the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) for in­for­ma­tion on im­pact­ed ar­eas and shel­ter lo­ca­tions. The wa­ters that re­main af­ter a tsuna­mi can con­tain haz­ardous de­bris or might be hid­ing the true depth of the wa­ter. Thus, avoid walk­ing through these wa­ters to pre­vent fur­ther in­juries.

As with any wa­ter dam­age or flood­ing, elec­tro­cu­tion be­comes an­oth­er no­table haz­ard due to downed pow­er lines or dam­aged un­der­ground elec­tri­cal lines. Avoid touch­ing elec­tri­cal equip­ment if it is wet or if you are stand­ing in wa­ter. Use text mes­sages to com­mu­ni­cate with fam­i­ly mem­bers to let them know that you are safe. Dur­ing emer­gen­cies, tele­phone lines may be down, or net­works can be­come busy due to in­creased traf­fic. Text mes­sages use less da­ta and are eas­i­er to pass through on a busy net­work. The lines should re­main open and free for first re­spon­ders to lo­cate and as­sist per­sons in need.

Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion, Ed­u­ca­tion & Com­mu­ni­ty Out­reach Unit

Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment

For more in­for­ma­tion on tsunamis, vis­it www.odpm.gov.tt