Iran vulnerable to tsunami

TEHRAN, May 2 (MNA) — Tony Elliot, a tsunami expert has said that Iran’s Makran region is seriously prone to tsunami and that it can’t be overlooked.

The coastal plain of Makran is a semi-desert coastal strip in the south of Baluchistan, in Iran and Pakistan, along the coast of the Sea of Oman.

“Iran’s Makran region is a small area, thus waves are closer to the coasts and if a tsunami occurs, there would not be enough time for timely warning of the tsunami occurrence,” Tony Elliot, director of the secretariat of Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWS), told reporters in Tehran on Saturday.

“IOTWS covers 28 littoral countries to the Indian Ocean. Iran is a member to the system and it has conducted a series of research on tsunami with the cooperation of UNESCO,” Elliot noted.

Talking on the sidelines of the workshop of Tsunami Hazards, Elliot said, “Iran’s condition regarding tsunami occurrence could be the same as Indonesia” with the exception that tsunami in the Iranian coast would cause numerous problems.

By conducting extensive researches, training expert forces, allocating substantial funds as well as developing tsunami early warning systems, Indonesia has managed to timely warn the occurrence of tsunami within five minutes of its initiation.

“Iran could also take lessons from the Indonesian model,” he added.

The workshop of Preparedness and Awareness of Makran Tsunami Hazards which is underway at the National Oceanographic center will run till May 5.

Elliot expressed hope that by establishing a seismology network, countries in the region would be able to exchange valuable data with each other.