PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - In the Caribbean and western mid-Atlantic, tens of thousands of lives are at risk and millions of dollars are at stake if a tsunami strikes and therefore all communities must implement more efficient warning systems. So says Christa von Hillebrandt Andrade, manager of the US national weather service Caribbean tsunami warning programme, who spoke yesterday at the eighth session of the Inter-Governmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) at Capital Plaza, Port-of-Spain.
“It is widely recognised it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a community to get tsunami-ready. Over the past years Unesco IOC has successfully provided a framework where policy-makers, emergency and disaster managers, educators and researchers and warning and monitoring experts have been able to work together to advance tsunami readiness in the region,”  Von Hillebrandt Andrade said. She also spoke in her capacity as chairman of the inter-governmental co-ordination group for tsunami and other coastal hazards warning system for the Caribbean and adjacent regions (ICG CARIBE).