TSUNAMI SURVIVAL PLAN

Introduction:

Pristine beaches, sunny weather, laid back relaxing life style and cheap food & accommodation attracts millions of tourist from all over the world to south East Asia. Bali, Java, Sumatra, American Samoa, Phuket, Indonesia, Malaysia are among the favourite tourist destination.

However these calm looking waters have a moving earth beneath them. Tsunami is “an earth quake in sea”, in layman’s terms. It’s the fastest moving and lethal natural disaster mankind has known. The reaction time is near to zero, as big, enormous wave’s floods the coast in no matter if time.

The infamous Boxing Day tsunami has taken so many dear ones away from their family, and caused massive economical damage to the region. Fortunately post Boxing Day tsunami various governments have setup ‘early tsunami warning system in the region.

We will talk about tsunami survival plan in this article to provide you with a list of items you should carry while you enjoy your holiday in south east asia.

Tsunami:

If you are looking for scientific information on tsunami you can find it here

Action Plan:

Like any other natural disaster Tsunami comes unannounced, and hence it’s in best of your interest to evaluate the situation and have an action plan in place.

I would suggest

• Leave your a detailed itinerary behind and pass it on to as many family/friend as possible. Update your blog regularly with photos while you are on holiday, as digital information can be really helpful to trace you back ( I.P address etc)
• Keep all your travel documents and all other important information in a waterproof sachet with a strap.
• Have a detailed survey of your accommodation and be well aware about escapee routes, elevated places and access to them.
• Be alert for signs; talk with locals as they have gone through tsunami before. Questions like what happened? How fast it was? Where everybody went? Which places are safe etc..
• Have couple of sim car and skype enabled phone on you, in recent American Samoa tsunami, when mobile network were down ABC journalists were using their skype phone for reporting!
• Make a list of what to do in the event and read it everyday, our brain needs to trained and it works lot faster if it has been reminded few times.
• Don’t try to be Hero, or put your life in danger for that possible Youtube footage. I’ll go and take a video on my mobile to show the world kind of adventure can put your life in potential risk.
• Apart from this there are plenty of resources available on all the tourist destination, take a moment to go through them.

This may sound more like a boot camp than a holiday but , guys and girls always remember somebody is waiting for you at home.

Survival Kit:

This is personal choice as well as common sense. It also varies from individual to individual but some standard stuff includes:

• Food supply: imagine scenario of living in a water flooded world without food on the roof top of hotel. Hunger can tense up the situation very fast!
• Radio: battery operated, this is I guess self explanatory
• Clothing: night can be very cold; days can be hot and humid. Always have couple of pairs of clothes reserved for unseen!
• Water purifying tablets: definitely you don’t want to have cholera and few other diseases due to bad water.
• Torch: again self explanatory
• Medications: asthma puffers, blood pressure tablets, paracetamol, or any other medications you’re are on, even emergency tampons, and my advice keep a lot separate in your survival kit.
• First aid: the medical help in these parts of world can take a while to arrive, and a basic first aid kit will be a boon.
• Skype enabled phone with camera: make sure you charge phone everyday. Even an extra battery won’t hurt!

I found Amazon has a list of all these items under “Tsunami Survival kit” it’s very well thought list actually. It’s not even expansive as you may think.

Finally I pray to god that you are any of your beloved have never go through this situation and you all have a nice, relaxing safe holiday.