12 January 2010 Haiti earthquake and tsunami event: post-event assessment of CARIBE EWS performance

Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Technical Series:

This post-event assessment uses the 7.0 magnitude Haitian earthquake on 12 January 2010 as an opportunity to evaluate the performance of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami and other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (ICG/CARIBE EWS). The group was established in 2005 after the lessons learnt from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in order to identify and mitigate the hazards posed by local and distant tsunamis and to create a fully integrated end-to-end warning system comprising four key components: hazard monitoring and detection; hazard assessment; warning dissemination; and community preparedness and response.

It highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of the system, identifies areas that require further attention, and provides a benchmark of the present status of the system. It intends to confirm that the National Tsunami Warning Centres (NTWCs) received bulletins from the interim advisory service in a timely manner, to determine what actions were taken by the NTWCs, and to find out if the Member States activated their emergency response plans based on the available information.