• Coral reef reduces the depth of the ocean, increasing the wave height and causing the wave to break and lose its energy before reaching the shore.


• Mangroves reduces the impact of the waves on the land, thus allowing people to escape

• Pamphlets and videos were distributed to explain that people should run to higher ground if seawater retreats suddenly



• Earthquake drills are also practiced at schools

Hazard mapping

• Population distribution, building codes and emergency preparedness in the area is reviewed and enhanced

Meeting people’s needs

• A refuge centre should be build in a safe area to provide a temporary home for the survivors



• Food, water and medicinal equipments should be accessible to the people who are injured



• Counsels must be readily available for those who are traumatised

References
http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/Dart/Jpg/DART-II_05x.swf
animation for dart

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/dart/dart.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_prediction#The_VAN_method

http://earthsci.org/processes/struct/equake3/EQPredictionControl.html

http://www.shvoong.com/exact-sciences/earth-sciences/1655284-effects-mangrove-forest-coral-reefs/

Tsunami Evaluation Coalition

The TEC had over 50 member agencies from the United Nations, Donors, Non-Governmental organizations and the Red Cross. These organizations have been working together since the TEC was established to:
▪ -To improve policy and practice in the relief and rehabilitation sector.
▪ -To provide some accountability to both the donor and recipient public.
▪ -To improve evaluation in the relief and rehabilitation sector by learning from the TEC process itself.

▪ Results from evaluation

Relief was effective
The relief phase was effective in ensuring that the immediate survival needs were met, through a mixture of local assistance in the immediate aftermath and international assistance in the first weeks after the disaster.

However, these relief responses were generally not based on joint needs assessments and were not well coordinated, leading to an excess of some interventions such as medical teams, alongside shortages in less accessible areas or less popular sectors such as water supply.

Unprecedented response
The scale of the generous public response was unprecedented, not only in the amount of money raised (about $14 billion internationally) but also in the proportion of funding from the general public, and the speed with which money was pledged or donated.

The scale of the funding allowed an early shift to rehabilitation and the use of cash assistance programmes. It also acted as a giant lens, highlighting many of the existing problems in humanitarian response systems.

The scale of funding also created coordination problems as it increased the number of agencies while removing some of the normal incentives for agencies to engage with coordination mechanisms.

Local capacity underestimated
Although local capacity is key to saving lives, this capacity is underestimated and undervalued by the international aid community as well as being overlooked by the international media. International agencies did not engage sufficiently with local actors, and assessed the skills of local actors relative to those of their own agency rather than in terms of skills appropriate to the local context.

Capacity of the humanitarian system is limited
The capacity of the international humanitarian system is not infinitely elastic.

Despite the generous response to the tsunami, the appeals-based system for funding humanitarian emergencies is flawed, with a pattern of under-funding humanitarian response in general.

This pattern of low funding for most emergencies limits the development of capacity within the international aid system, and makes it difficult for the system to scale-up to respond appropriately to a large emergency such as this.

Agencies focus too much on "brand" promotion
Agencies focus too much on promoting their brand and not enough on the needs of the affected populations. Agencies are still not transparent or accountable enough to the people they are trying to assist. In some cases agencies are also not sufficiently accountable to those providing the funding.

Recovery is proving far more difficult than relief
The recovery phase is proving a far bigger challenge than the relief phase. This is due in part to the greater complexity of recovery and to the demands that such complexity places on the aid agencies.

Cleanup and the beginning of recovery

Identification of, religious rites for, and burial of the dead, identification and exchange of information about displaced survivors, reduction of dangerous conditions (unstable houses, infrastructure, and so on), and early attempts to restore vital services where possible now become the focus of activity and effort.

Reconstruction:
Once basic immediate needs have been met, the focus shifts to the reconstruction of economic capacity, livelihoods, communities, and the ongoing institutions of life (schools, public services, and so on).

Establishing command and control
One of the most effective ways to organize sudden responses is through an "Incident Management System" —a well-defined approach to establishing a temporary organization with logistical, operational, planning, and financial capacity to carry out a rescue and recovery effort. Many relief organizations use some variation of an
organizational design with a central authority supported by;

1. An operational command (carrying out activities).
2. A planning group (developing plans for the next "operational cycle" of hours, days, or weeks).
3. A logistics group (organizing the flow of people and materiel in to the action areas).
4. A finance group (arranging for payment to suppliers and workers).
5. A public communication group (keeping relevant constituencies informed).

Unfortunately, the peculiar circumstances of the 2004 South Asian tsunamis create unusually challenging circumstances for the rapid establishment and coordination of relief efforts. In particular, it is difficult to establish effective incident command systems as a result of the following circumstances:

(1) A myriad of places in which it is essential to operate suddenly and simultaneously.

>The tsunamis affected a very large number of different locations along a shoreline stretching for thousands of miles, spreading across about a dozen countries.

>Relief efforts will have to be mounted—and locally coordinated—in hundreds of different locations, challenging the capacity to mount teams with incident command experience in so many locations simultaneously.

(2) Multiple and confusing jurisdictions.

>The impact zone is characterized by many locations with multiple authorities—federal, local, international, community—of many different types—governmental, military, police, paramilitary, public health.

>These are now joined by many outside organizations—international NGOs, the U.N., and so on.

>Sorting out who is in charge, and of what, and who reports to whom, is challenge.

>Incident management experts report that their work is greatly facilitated in locations where clear authority can be established—and delegated to them.

>Where authority is multiple, or shared, and contested, it can be exceedingly difficult to coordinate, direct, and distribute aid.

(3) Political instability.

>In the short run, most of the decisions that need to be made are technical and straightforward—people are doing everything they can, with the resources available, to rescue victims, support the injured, and care for traumatized survivors.

>As the immediate human needs come to be met, however, and the situation stabilizes, the decisions become more controversial.

>While people are generally willing to accept expert guidance and judgment for the technical matters, when it comes to setting longer-term priorities the community will expect to play a more determinative role.

>At this point, the political instability of some of the affected areas caused conflict among different groups about who should be consulted and whose priorities should receive the greatest attention.