Indian ocean-wide tsunami mock exercise known as IOWave 18 was conducted on Wednesday in 328 tsunami-prone villages/ULBs in six costal districts to improve the preparedness level against the possible disaster.
The test scenario was simulated by INCOIS based on earthquake of magnitude of 9.3 at Northern Sumatra, Indonesia for the mock exercise. 15 dummy bulletins were issued by INCOIS and sent to the State Emergency Operation Center (SEOC) at SRC office, Bhubaneswar through email, Fax and SMS.
The SEOC immediately passed the bulletins to the District Emergency Operation Centre (DEOC) by Fax, email, SMS and social media. DEOC in return passed the bulletins to the local BDOs, Tahasildars and other stakeholders for final dissemination to the village community.
The local Sarpanches, community mobilisers and volunteers alerted the villagers and took initiative for evacuation to safer places through the identified safe routes in shortest time period. Alert siren systems installed in the tsunami prone villages were activated and controlled from SEOC to alert the people through siren and disseminate voice messages.
The exercise was coordinated by Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), Unesco, in which Odisha participated as a part of tsunami preparedness for the community.