The Intergovernmental Coordination Group (ICG) for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWS) decided at its 9th Session (Jakarta, Indonesia, 27-30 November 2012) to conduct joint training workshops on Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for tsunami warning and emergency response in 2013 and 2014 involving the Regional Tsunami Service Providers (RTSPs), National Tsunami Warning Centres (NTWCs), Disaster Management Organisations (DMOs) and media organisations. The workshops are organised by ICG/IOTWS Working Groups 2 (Tsunami Detection, Warning and Dissemination) and 3 (Tsunami Awareness and Response).
The second of these workshops, targeted at northern and western Indian Ocean countries, will be held in Hyderabad, India, 23-26 June 2014, hosted by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS). Following the workshop, intersessional meetings of the ICG/IOTWS Working Groups 2 and 3 and the IOwave14 Task Team will be held on 27 June.
The primary goal of the workshop is to assist the ICG/IOTWS Member States to develop their SOPs for responding to RTSP bulletins. The objectives will be: to understand RTSP services and products; to understand the impact of the RTSP products on NTWC SOPs; to identify potential gaps and possible challenges for warning chain SOPs at the national level; to familiarise the electronic media with the RTSP service and develop/adapt SOPs for interfacing with the media; and to prepare for the IOWave14 Exercise, scheduled to take place in September 2014.
