St Kitts and Nevis govt gears up to participate in Caribe Wave Tsunami Exercise 2022 through NEMA

Basseterre: St Kitts and Nevis Government have been gearing up to participate in the 2022 Caribe Wave Tsunami Exercise through the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), slated for March 10, 2022 (Thursday).

Oureika Lennon-Petty discussed the significance of the Caribe Wave Tsunami Exercise to the Federation, Planning Officer at NEMA, during the March 2, 2022 edition of the radio and television programme – “Working for You”.

Lennon-Party stated, “Basically Caribe Wave is utilized to check the early warning systems of the Caribbean region, this regional tsunami exercise is done in March, every year. This tsunami exercise holds a crucial position as the Caribbean nations have been surrounded with water, and tsunami makes it vulnerable.”

She further added that every year NEMA, in collaboration with the Nevis Disaster Management Department, participates in the Caribe Wave to test the local system as well as the receival of the tsunami warning messages from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.

This practice has been conducted annually across the Caribbean countries since 2009. During this, the historical seismic data has been used to generate a test scenario; last year’s exercise was based on the 1775 tsunami of magnitude greater than 8.5 earthquakes, located off the coast of Portugal.

The exercise is conducted every year to predict the upcoming tsunami so the Caribbean nations can take preventive measures as per the requirements.

She outlined, “We are surrounded by water, and to overdue, a tsunami, the University of West Indies Seismic Research Centre adopted this practice. We have subscribed to the comprehensive disaster management as we strive to prepare to reduce the impact of the tsunami.”

“Under this exercise, the government also frames an evacuation strategy. With the help of this, we use the opportunity to test every aspect and public awareness about in terms of the knowledge of where your assembly point is in the given area, where you live, play, and work,” she added.

NEMA developed various new strategies to adequately test the emergency response system, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Government of St Kitts and Nevis.

In 2020, NEMA took the decision of converting Caribe Wave into a communication exercise. In collaboration with telecommunication companies, another communication exercise was adopted in 2021.