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ScienceDecember 2, 2016

Everyone agrees NZ needs a better tsunami warning system. But what?

Guest writer
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Following the Kaikoura experience, Japan and Indonesia’s mechanisms may offer examples – and there is clearly need to tackle confusion over self-evacuation, writes geologist Jane Cunneen

Following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake and tsunami on November 14, conversation is turning to whether New Zealand should have a 24/7 earthquake monitoring and tsunami warning system.

The prime minister says that a cellphone-based tsunami alert system will be announced shortly. At a reported cost of $20 million, this is likely just referring to an added communication method such as Cell Broadcast (CB) technology to complement the existing tsunami warning system.

Cell Broadcast technology is used for disaster warnings in many countries including Japan, the US, Maldives, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands. It broadcasts to all handsets within a specific location, so avoids some of the problems with SMS such as network overload and delays in delivering the message. However it is still dependent on a working mobile network, which means it is not useful in areas with no mobile phone coverage or in those where mobile network towers are damaged by the earthquake. Recent events demonstrated that this is not an effective solution for many parts of New Zealand’s east coast.

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So what is New Zealand’s existing tsunami warning system, and how does it compare to systems in countries with a similar tsunami risk? Does New Zealand need a more effective local tsunami warning system and how much would it cost?

New Zealand is already an active member of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System (PTWS), a group of 46 member states around the Pacific Ocean who work together to provide information and warnings on tsunamis in the region. This system relies on receiving tsunami information from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center based in Hawaii, and is geared to warnings for distant tsunamis that will not strike the coast of New Zealand for several hours.

So can New Zealand build a system that would warn of approaching local tsunamis? Two countries with a high risk of tsunami are Japan and Indonesia. Both have national tsunami warning systems, but there are differences in their approaches to warnings for local tsunamis.

Japan

Following the great Tohuku earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, Japan has upgraded its already high-tech earthquake and tsunami warning system.

Japanese scientists have estimated that 40% of nearshore (local) tsunamis will hit the coast within 20 minutes. The upgraded tsunami warning system has a goal of putting out tsunami warnings within three minutes of detecting an earthquake. The accuracy of this system is possible thanks to Japan’s extremely dense network of earthquake detection instruments. However, the larger earthquakes are harder to measure and need more time for accuracy. If an earthquake has a magnitude over 8 then it can take longer to determine the exact scale, and the initial warning is based on an estimate, requiring revision as more information becomes available.

The 2011 quake lasted for more than two minutes, but automatic readings and simulations began at the start of the quake, meaning that its energy was initially underestimated.

Japan has also invested heavily in physical barriers like storm walls, which protect up to a third of the coastline, costing billions of dollars. However, these coastal defences were not as effective as expected in the March 2011 event, and Japanese public opinion is divided as to whether the investment is worthwhile.

Despite the high technology instruments and systems, the most important part of the Japanese tsunami warning system involves 24/7 availability of organisations, strong guidelines for quick decision making by government agencies, good public education campaigns and frequent communication drills. Evacuation exercises are undertaken in high risk areas at least once per year on “Disaster Preparedness Day” on September 1.

Indonesia

Indonesia has developed a national tsunami warning system since the devastating Aceh earthquake and tsunami in December 2004, where over 170,000 Indonesians died. It is also one of the regional tsunami warning centres for the Indian Ocean region, providing information for all countries around the Indian Ocean.

The Indonesian meteorological agency, BMKG, hosts the Indonesia’s National Tsunami Warning Center, InaTEWS. The agency operates on a 24/7 basins and is responsible for initial evaluation of tsunami threat following an earthquake, aiming to have tsunami warnings sent within five minutes of an earthquake occurring.

InaTEWS operates what is called a people-centered early warning system, relying on strong communication links with local agencies in areas at risk and an ongoing public education system. Warning messages are sent directly from BMKG to local government at provincial, district and city level, which are also required to operate 24/7. The decision to evacuate is taken at local government level and is based on Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) set by each district.

Warnings can be disseminated by tsunami sirens, mosque loudspeakers, local radio stations and directly from search and rescue personnel on the ground. The system relies on public awareness of the signs of a potential local tsunami, and frequent drills are undertaken in risk areas. The public are constantly reminded of the need to self-evacuate if they feel a strong earthquake, and not wait for an official warning.

New Zealand

The tsunami warning systems for Japan and Indonesia have many things in common, including dense networks of seismometers and other monitoring technology, 24/7 operation of both the warning centres and the local agencies responsible for evacuations, strong communication links, and frequent evacuation drills to maintain public awareness.

Greater investment in equipment for New Zealand’s seismic monitoring network would improve accuracy and warning times for tsunami, but the difference in tsunami warning times may be minimal. However, investment in a 24/7 seismic monitoring centre would at least ensure that earthquake data can be analysed quickly.

GNS Science has conducted some modelling of likely tsunami scenarios, indicating that waves from a locally sourced tsunami would hit the New Zealand coast within minutes of an earthquake. In a best-case scenario where the tsunami warning is issued within five minutes, there will be only a minute or so (if that) for evacuation. Residents living on the coast in these areas therefore will still need to self-evacuate before the official warning arrives.

Confusion about the need to self-evacuate following the recent earthquake, suggest that improvements can be made in this area. Around-the-clock operation of both national and local agencies involved in tsunami warning can improve the speed and accuracy of message dissemination.

More Reading

    It is tempting to look for a high-tech quick fix to these problems, but experiences in countries like Japan and Indonesia highlight the fact that there are no short cuts to effective tsunami warning. It takes ongoing effort to fully understand the seismic hazard and the tsunami risks, constant work on good communication between agencies, communication drills at all levels including with the community, strong guidelines for quick decision making, and ongoing funding to provide 24/7 services.

    New Zealand will need an ongoing national conversation regarding its unique requirements for a local tsunami warning system and the cost vs benefits of such a system. Each country has different tsunami risk and therefore different requirements, although examples of tsunami warning systems from other countries can provide useful examples. Better public awareness of the tsunami risk in New Zealand can enrich the national conversation, making sure that the whole community can be involved in deciding what to do about it.

    The Spinoff’s science content is made possible thanks to the support of The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, a national institute devoted to scientific research.

    Keep going!
    Cupcakes decorated with colourful female genitalia. Photo: Melanie Dawn Harter / Getty Images
    Cupcakes decorated with colourful female genitalia. Photo: Melanie Dawn Harter / Getty Images

    ScienceNovember 25, 2016

    Calling a vagina a vagina: why cutesy code words are terrible for our sexual health

    Contributing writer
    Cupcakes decorated with colourful female genitalia. Photo: Melanie Dawn Harter / Getty Images
    Cupcakes decorated with colourful female genitalia. Photo: Melanie Dawn Harter / Getty Images

    New Zealand’s rates of sexually transmitted infections like chlamydia are some of the highest in the Western world. That’s the bad news, says Siouxsie Wiles – the good news is that we can begin fixing the problem just by being more frank about our genitalia and what it does.

    Lady parts. Bits. Flower. Front bottom. Hoo hoo. Foo foo. Vag. Vajayjay. Chuff. Fanny. Snatch. Pussy.

    A few years ago, The Eve Appeal , a UK gynaecological cancer charity, found that two-thirds of young women they surveyed had a problem using the words vagina or vulva, and nearly 40% of 16-25 year olds said they resort to using code names for their genitalia. Even worse, many of the young women couldn’t correctly identify their internal and external genitalia on a simple diagram. Do you know a vagina from a vulva, or where the cervix and labia are? Give it a try.

    When I became a mother, I vowed there would be no mention of foo foos and vajayjays in our house. I mean, come on. Foo foo? Where the fuck did that come from? When my daughter was old enough to start learning the names for the parts of her body, she learnt them all. Elbow, vulva, knee. They are all just parts of her. When we use phrases like foo foo and front bottom, we make these essential parts of our body a source of shame. Stigmatised. Like something we need to hide. I’m guessing that’s why we think it’s perfectly ok to admit to having a chest infection, or a pus-filled knee, but not an itchy crotch. How did Hermione Granger put it? “Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself”. Well, not on my watch. Or so I thought.

    Cupcakes decorated with colourful female genitalia. Photo: Melanie Dawn Harter / Getty Images
    Cupcakes decorated with colourful female genitalia. Photo: Melanie Dawn Harter / Getty Images

    My daughter is rapidly approaching tweenagehood, and last year her class at primary school started on the first level of the NZ health and physical education curriculum: “describing changes in growth patterns and identifying body parts”. She came home after their first lesson astonished and a little deflated. She was the only one in her class who knew the words vulva and vagina. From what I can gather, her classmates reacted with a mixture of shock, horror and giggling when, without a hint of embarrassment or shame, she spoke up and named both male and female genitals. An even sadder thing happened after that lesson though. She was asked by one of the teachers not to talk about vulvas and vaginas outside of the class. She learnt an awful lesson that day: our genitals are something to be ashamed of, to keep quiet about. This is how it starts.

    When we stigmatise parts of our body like this, we do ourselves no favours. Because there are grave dangers lurking – like the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. Chlamydia can be transmitted from person to person during vaginal, anal and oral sex. Yes, oral sex too. It can also be passed from an infected mother to her baby during childbirth. And chlamydia is no walk in the park. In babies, infection can lead to blindness and pneumonia. The symptoms of chlamydia in women include abnormal vaginal discharge, bleeding between periods, pain when having sex or peeing, and an itching or burning in or around the vagina. In men, it’s pain when peeing, pain and swelling around the testicles, a clear or cloudy discharge from the tip of the penis, and a burning and itching around the opening of the penis. Are you squirming yet? The good news is chlamydia is still easily treated with antibiotics.

    For some reason, chlamydia isn’t a notifiable disease here, so doctors don’t have to report to the Ministry of Health on how many cases they treat, or who has it. The best guestimates put chlamydia rates in New Zealand at about 630 cases per 100,000 population, which is the way public health people describe things. To put that in context, it’s double what the rates are in Australia and the UK. Our rates also vary around the country, from about 330 cases per 100,000 for the West Coast District Health Board (DHB) region, to about 1,140 per 100,000 for the Lakes DHB.

    Now for the bad news. Seven out of ten women who have chlamydia, and one out of four men, will have no symptoms at all. Nada. Zilch. Those microscopic chlamydia beasties will be happily living inside those people, who remain blissfully unaware they are infected. Not only will those wee beasties be silently passing from person to person, but without antibiotic treatment about half of asymptomatic women will go on to develop pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). What’s PID you ask? Swelling that can cause serious complications like chronic pelvic pain, ectopic pregnancy and infertility. It’s a similar story for asymptomatic men. If they don’t get treated they can develop painful swelling of the testicles and epididymis (that’s the tube located at the back of the testicles that stores and carries sperm), as well as reactive arthritis and infertility.

    So, let’s do some back of the envelope calculations. According to the most recent figures available, in 2014 there were 28,331 cases of lab-confirmed chlamydia in New Zealand. Of those, 19,986 were in women. If they represent the roughly three in ten women with symptoms of infection, that’s a staggering 46,634 women and young girls who could have asymptomatic chlamydia and be at risk of disease and infertility later in life. For the men and young boys, it works out at 24,825 at risk.

    So why are our rates of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) so high? Well, in a recent survey, less than half of sexually active young people reported using condoms. That has to change. If you are sexually active and have never had an STI check, or haven’t had one in the last year, go get one done. Same for your partner(s). And if you aren’t trying to have a baby, then use barrier protection like condoms and oral dams. When properly used, they are very good at stopping the spread of STIs.

    But to really beat infections like chlamydia, we need culture change. And that starts by ditching code names like foo foo and front bottom, and talking openly about common symptoms like pain, itching, oozing and bleeding, whichever part of the body they come from.

    When it comes to our sexual health, it’s time to stop beating about the bush. At least not without a wearing a condom.

     

    Dr Siouxsie Wiles is Deputy Director, Education and Outreach, at Te Pūnaha Matatini, a Centre of Research Excellence. She describes herself as a microbiologist and bioluminescence enthusiast. Head of the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab at the University of Auckland, Siouxsie combines her twin passions to understand infectious diseases.

    All this week Te Pūnaha Matatini are running InfectedNZ, which brings together leading health, social and economic researchers and people with personal stories to write about infectious diseases and what we’re going to do about the looming antimicrobial Armageddon. Follow their blogs here and join the conversation with #infectedNZ. Backing it all up, wherever possible, is data from Figure.NZ. Their charts are based on data sourced from public repositories, government departments, academics and corporations. Check out their #infectedNZ data board and sign-up to create your very own data board on any topic that floats your boat.

    The Spinoff’s science content is made possible thanks to the support of The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, a national institute devoted to scientific research.