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Tsunami Relief Aid Begins
01 Feb 2005
The widespread damage to livelihoods and infrastructures resulting from the magnitude 9 earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra on 26 December has brought a swift response from world aid agencies and organisations, including national hydrographic offices.
Among the first to answer international calls for assistance is the German Maritime & Hydrographic Agency (BSH), which has assumed responsibility for the Sri Lankan Hydrographic Service as part of the German government’s pledge to help with reconstruction of devastated areas. The tsunami has reportedly destroyed Sri Lanka’s entire hydrographic and research capability, including all central facilities as well as the country’s only survey vessel. Total damage is estimated at $40m.
Early in January, German Transport Minister Manfred Stolpe authorised a team of hydrographic experts to visit Sri Lanka and co-ordinate activities, adding that the 64m BSH-operated vessel, Komet, would also be assigned to carry out surveys of the most important ports and their approaches.
Meanwhile, following agreement with the Indonesian government, the UK has dispatched its Royal Navy survey ship, HMS Scott, to undertake detailed bathymetric and geological studies of the earthquake’s epicentre at depths of between 1,000 and 5,000m.
Aimed at a better understanding of earthquakes and possible prediction of any similar events in the area, a key part of the base map survey process will be the use of a bathyscope probe of the sea for determining temperature, depth and salinity as the system descends through water columns prior to sonar studies. Assisting operations are scientists from Southampton Oceanography Centre and the British Geological Survey.
Since the epicentre lies within the Indonesian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), operations are being conducted under the Marine Scientific Research protocol of the UN Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
