PHUKET: One of the tsunami-warning buoys currently being “replaced” by a Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) mission that set sail from Phuket last week is back online.
Station 23461, located about halfway between Phuket and the Nicobar Islands, has resumed transmitting real-time data. Image: NOAA
Station 23461, installed in the Andaman Sea approximately 340km northwest of Phuket, began relaying real-time data to the US Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) last Thursday (Nov 18).
The buoy became operational again three days after the ship MS Seafdec left Phuket on its DDPM mission to “replace” two tsunami warning buoys that were no longer functioning.
Station 23461, located about halfway between Phuket and the Nicobar Islands, stopped transmitting data on June 7 this year, with Thai authorities explaining that the problem was with data not synching with NOAA servers.
The other tsunami-warning buoy owned and maintained by the DDPM’s National Disaster Warning Center (NDWC), Station 23401, as of today (Nov 22) has yet to resume relaying data.
Station 23401, installed as part of a multinational array of tsunami-warning buoys in the Bay of Bengal, stopped transmitting data in October last year. The buoy was confirmed as “missing” from its installed location, but later recovered.
DDPM Director-General Boontham Lertsukeekasem was in Phuket last week to officiate the high-profile sending off of.the ship MS Seafdec, named after the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center.
The ship departed Phuket Deep Sea Port, on the east coast of Cape Panwa, at 3pm on Nov 15 with two tsunami-warning buoys on board to “replace” the two that were “not functioning”.
Source: The Phuket News
