Goa’s atmospheric conditions were calm, as super Ccyclone Phailin battered the East coast on Sunday, but experts say the state’s coastline can be vulnerable to similar phenomenon in the Arabian sea and also tsunamis within eight hours travel distance.
“There was nothing unusual about the atmospheric conditions, especially the wind and wave conditions around Dona Paula on Sunday,” Anthony Joseph, a former NIO scientist and author of a book on tsunamis, said.
The meteorological department had forecast some showers as a mild impact of the very severe cyclone. Atmospheric disturbances in the Bay of Bengal generally affect the state’s weather conditions.
Goa’s coast can be more vulnerable to cyclonic storms in the Arabian sea. “The cyclone Phyan in November 2009 struck coastal areas and many boats had capsized even in Goa,” Joseph stated.
But such phenomena, for some reason, occur more in the Bay of Bengal than in the Arabian sea. The state’s coastline appears to be in greater danger from the perils of calamities, such as tsunamis within a radius of eight hours travel distance due to local coastline and estuarine topography, he added. A Sumatra tsunami in September 2007 was recorded in Goa and Lakshadweep archipelago in the Arabian sea on India’s West coast, but being mild it went unnoticed.
“This (Indonesia) region is an earth-quake prone region and in 2007 it manifested at the Mandovi estuary as a weak tsunami, but revealed well-defined tsunami characteristics,” Joseph said.
Joseph had studied before his retirement the 2007 tsunami and also the disastrous December 26, 2004 phenomenon with his NIO colleagues, Prakash Mehra, R G Prabhudesai and others and published it in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences Journal of the European Geoscience Union last year.
But the 2004 tsunami is considered by some as one of deadliest tsunamis in history, as it is reported to have killed more than 1.5 lakh people in several countries and even caused damage in the state’s coastal areas, especially to the fishing craft.
The massive upheaval caused by the giant waves took nearly eight hours from the eastern region in Sunda trench to impact the state’s coastline. “Even though primarily 12 countries were affected, people (tourists) from more than 40 countries, were killed,” he said.
After the catastrophe, the NIO set up an integrated coastal observation network (ICON) of sea level stations in various parts of the country. A station at Verem in Goa now monitors sea-level and sea-water temperature oscillations.
A few beach stretches, such as Morjim and Baga also witnessed a phenomenon of meteo-tsunami in March 2011. “Meteo-tsunami is similar to geo-physical tsunami. There are no strange meteorological disturbances seen on the state’s coastline, but the flooding took everyone by surprise,” a source said.
A similar phenomenon, which local people in Kerala mistakenly thought of as tsunami had hit Poonthura coast of that state in May 2005, April 2007 and February 2008.
The state as well as the rest of the country’s coastline will be vulnerable to future events. “The region of Makran in the Arabian sea near Pakistan is vulnerable to earthquakes and if a major one happens, then the countries on either side of the Arabian sea can be affected,” Joseph concluded.
In September 2013, an earthquake in Makran had pushed up a few islands in the sea and methane gas emanated from them.
2013 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.