St. Kitts and Nevis gets late notice
BASSETERE, St. Kitts – YESTERDAY (Mar. 23), St. Kitts and Nevis was scheduled to be among 33 countries to participate in the Caribbean region's first full-scale tsunami warning exercise called Caribe Wave 11, but, according to reports, the Federation was not in attendance.
In an effort to learn the reason behind the Federation’s non-participation in the exercise, SKNVibes contacted Carl Herbert, National Disaster Coordinator for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), who explained that his agency was not given enough time to prepare.
“I was at a meeting overseas last week when I became aware of the exercise and saw an individual with a book that spoke to the exercise and its contents et cetera. A colleague from Dominica and I indicated that we did not receive any communication about the exercise. In order to have an exercise like this and for it to be meaningful, it takes proper planning and multiple stakeholders and agencies have to be engaged to be a part of such an exercise. Therefore, there was not enough time for us to get all of that in place to participate,” Herbert explained.
Despite being unable to attend the exercise, Herbert revealed that NEMA had conducted a similar training in the area of earthquake readiness earlier this year.
“In early February we had an earthquake readiness capacity building project, which is part of the Caribbean Disaster Measurement Agency outreach programme, at which time we look at earthquake contingency plans and how to adopt it to St. Kitts and Nevis’ context. This is part of an ongoing programme of seismic-related preparedness activities,” the National Disaster Coordinator said.
Since the recent seismic activities that have devastated many countries, the most recent being Japan, many residents are asking…“Is St. Kitts and Nevis prepared for such disasters?”
Herbert also explained that “disasters come in various magnitudes, and what I would say is that St. Kitts and Nevis is one of several countries in the region that has not developed enough capacity of seismic-related activities. And that is why we have been participating in the recent activity I spoke of. So it’s an ongoing situation and, in relation to the tsunami preparedness, it is still in the development stage in the Caribbean”.
According to UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, the exercise, which was held in Barbados, was especially important following the catastrophic tsunami that struck Japan on Friday, March 11, 2011.
“The earthquake and tsunami that have devastated Japan have shown how essential alert systems are,” Bokova said, adding, “In this context, the development of a coordinated system in the Caribbean is more relevant than ever, enabling coastal countries to prepare in the event of such a disaster and to save human lives.”
It has been reported that at least 75 tsunamis have been recorded in the Caribbean over the last 500 years; about 10 percent of the total number of oceanic tsunamis in the world during that period.
It was further noted that Caribbean tsunamis have killed more than 3 500 people in the region since the mid-19th century, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The countries that attended the tsunami alert exercise are: Aruba, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, France (Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Martin, Guyane), Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Netherlands (Bonaire, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Curacao and Sint Marteen), Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom (Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos), and the United States.
