Christian agency on guard as quakes triggered tsunami alert

The memories of the 2004 tsunami kept workers of the Christian Aid on their toes as a tsunami alert was sounded especially along the eastern coast of India following a massive earthquake in Indonesia.

"We were ready to respond to this earthquake as we have been practicing evacuation drills with vulnerable communities and developing early warning systems to help people protect themselves should disaster strike, said Nick Guttmann, head of emergencies at Christian Aid.

Christian Aid has a network of capable partners in Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Philippines who have managed large humanitarian responses for previous disasters.

On Wednesday, an earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sumatra island, triggering an Indian Ocean-wide tsunami alert.

The US Geological Survey said the first 8.6-magnitude quake was a shallow 14 miles (22 km), striking in the sea 270 miles (435 km) off Aceh's coast making it the sixth-largest quake in the last half-century.

"As soon as partners received the early warning from media and Christian Aid they communicate with the community task forces who alert villages using megaphones," said Sajjad Mohammad Sajid, Christian Aid's emergency officer for South Asia.

In western Aceh, one of the areas hardest hit by the 2004 tsunami, Arshinta from Christian Aid partner YEU said, "We have been trained in tsunami preparedness management, evacuations were done properly and it was good to know our homes were strong."

Says Guttmann, "We are constantly working with communities to make sure they have the knowledge. It makes a huge difference having the early warning systems in place."

"The big tsunami early warning systems have been developed since 2004. Prior to 2004 we tried to do as much as we could but it was hard to galvanise governments to show how important these systems are until the actual tsunami, which was a huge wake up call for everyone."

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) had claimed that the communication systems set up after the 2004 tsunami appeared to have been successful as it received the warnings in under five minutes.

As sirens were sounded in India, authorities in eastern states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands asked people to move away from the coast to higher ground.

The government had initially issued tsunami alert for the country's coastal regions, including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

In 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people.