HN3- Automatic Tsunami Early Warning System

Overview

Indonesia frequently experiences earthquakes and tsunami since Indonesia is geologically located in the ring of fire and sits along three major tectonic plates of the world, namely Eurasian, Indo- Australia and Pacific. Thus, these natural phenomena have the potential to continuously occur for example a notable tsunami that hit Aceh in 2004 and killed 160,000 people. The newest case happens in Palu, Donggala and in Sunda Strait in Banten and Lampung in 2018. Those incidents left significant loss of lives, environmental damages and socio-economic losses which became a national disaster. This condition is not yet supported by adequate means of disaster mitigation and a tsunami early warning system. Various efforts have been made by the government to minimize death and damages due to tsunami, including by installing disaster mitigation and tsunami early warning system such as the InaTEWS (Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System) conducted by BMKG (Indonesian Agency for Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysics), EWS (Early Warning System) by the BPBD (Regional Disaster Management Agency) Kulonprogo. However, currently there are only 52 units of InaTEWS throughout Indonesia whereas ideally according to the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), it should be 1,000 units. In addition to the limited units, not all of coastal area in Indonesia have InaTEWS towers because the components still have to be imported from abroad, thus the price is very high. This study developed an innovation of the Automatic Tsunami Early Warning System designed for early informing the occurrence of earthquakes that potentially lead tsunami in certain regions or area to minimize the casualties. This automatic tsunami early warning system utilizes earthquake and tsunami potential data available in xml format that can be reused and downloaded through BMKG’s official website, http://data.bmkg.go.id which is updated in real-time, using a mini-PC Raspberry Pi 3 to be processed and sent to targeted locations via SMS (Short Message Service) to automatically trigger the loudspeakers in places of worship with a fast average response time of 13.48 seconds.

Problem

The fatalities from the tsunami in Indonesia, which are still quite high, are caused by the lack of an adequate early warning system.

Solution

Automatic Tsunami Early Warning System synchronized with The Indonesian Agency for Meteorological, Climatological, and Geophysics website. With the low production cost, easy maintenance, efficient energy use with only a 12 volt dc power source, fast and precise with an average response time of 13.48 second, it can be the solution to minimize the casualties caused by tsunami and so ensuring the safety of the coastal community throughout Indonesia.

Target from Participation in BIIS

Promoting the innovation globally and echoing the importance of being literate/aware of the importance of implementing disaster mitigation technology to support safety life.