Whichever news channels you follow, Europe’s first tsunami alert system – ‘successfully tested’ in Portugal last week – is pioneering. But will it really make any difference? And when will it be put in place?
These are the questions that were put to inventor Alessandro Annunziato when he and his team alighted on Setúbal’s Parque Albarquel last Thursday to test TAD (the name for their Tsunami Alerting Device).
As Lusa news agency pointed out, a four-minute warning of a rapidly approaching seven-metre wall of water that will travel almost half a mile onto previously dry land may not be enough for the local population. The example was taken from the description of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Portugal in 1755. As Lusa explained, the riverside area of Setúbal was completely destroyed in the earthquake. The same thing could happen again.
Italian Annunziato stressed that the four-minute warning could “increase significantly in the future” as technology improves.
TAD works on the basis of a system that measures sea levels and transmits any warnings onto public information panels.
The idea is for the system to eventually be extended across the Portuguese coast.
For last week’s test, the warning of an approaching tsunami was flashed across the information panel in Albarquel urban park at the same time that the system triggered a blast of sirens.
“Some people got frightened and even called the fire brigade,” Annunziato told Lusa, explaining this was “because they didn’t know about the tsunami alert system”.
But the experiment was deemed a success by all those involved who have been working on it since 2011.
As Annunziato told the Portuguese national news service: “The tsunami alert system is financed by the European Commission but, at this point in time, there are other priorities in Europe, like employment”.
In other words, it is impossible to predict when, or indeed if, TAD will be put into place.
