Agency admits Andaman tsunami buoy defected, claims tsunami warnings unaffected

The department was responding to a comment posted on the Foundation of National Disaster Warning Council’s Facebook page. The post said that Thais should not bank on just the tsunami warning system as buoy “Station 23461” had stopped working and stopped feeding information into the warning system. The comment was posted on Saturday.

However, it was not until Monday that the department responded. It said that the problems with the Station 23461 buoy were nothing new, as the department had been seeking help from the Royal Thai Navy to retrieve it since August 7 last year.

The department said it had realised that the buoy had stopped feeding information into the system on August 3 and called on the Third Naval base to retrieve it for maintenance.

The buoy was stationed about 340 kilometres northwest of Phuket.

The department said it had purchased a replacement, and it was en route from the United States. It is scheduled to arrive in March and should be deployed by November this year.

The department added that the decommissioning of Station 23461 buoy will not make the department’s National Disaster Warning Centre (NDWC) less effective.

This is because the NDWC system also used information from other sources, both inside and outside Thailand to compile and simulate tsunami scenarios as a warning for people along Thai coastal provinces in time.

The department said the system used information from foreign partners in monitoring earthquakes in the Indian Ocean and other seas as well as data from tsunami buoys in the Indian Sea and water level measuring stations of India and Indonesia.

Data from water level measuring stations at Koh Mang in Phang Nga and Koh Racha Noi in Phuket are also taken for compiling.

The information will be comprehensive enough to issue a tsunami warning for Satun, Trang, Krabi, Phang Nga, Ranong and Phuket in time, the department assured.

Without a tsunami warning system, thousands of lives were lost when a tsunami hit the western and southern coastlines, particularly affecting popular tourist destinations like Phuket, Khao Lak, and Phi Phi Island. The waves reached up to 10 meters high in some areas, causing immense damage to infrastructure on December 26, 2004.