India offers tsunami warning system to SCS countries

India has offered tsunami early warning-system to South China Sea (SCS) countries like Vietnam, Malaysia and Philippines as part of soft-diplomacy.
India already provides earthquake and tsunami-warning alerts to several countries in the Indian Ocean neighbourhood, as do Japan and Australia.

Features of Tsunami early warning-system

• Developed by scientists at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS).
• It warns concerned authorities of any large earthquake in the Ocean and threat it poses.
• Uses mathematical model to estimate if an earthquake in India’s oceanic neighbourhood can result in a tsunami.
• It sends out a series of graded warnings to warn officials of danger based on data received form sensors lodged on the ocean floor.
• These sensors can measure actual earthquake signals and based on it generates warnings.

Concerns

The South China Sea (SCS) is a controversial region on which China exerting territorial rights over its large part. Some of these territorial claims have been challenged by Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. On this issue, India considers that all countries must abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which governs how countries must respect ocean boundaries and international waters of countries. India and China are signatory to this convention.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2016