Vaisala Corporate Responsibility Report 2011

Case: Vaisala Tsunami Detection Network in Chile
Monitoring the Oceans
At 03:34 a.m. on February 27th 2010, a devastating
earthquake and series of tsunamis suddenly hit the
central–south coast of Chile. The 8.8 magnitude
earthquake was the sixth strongest ever recorded
and the tremors were felt all the way in Ica, Peru
some 2,400 kilometers away. Tsunami warnings were
issued in 53 countries, although many were later
cancelled as tidal waves remained mostly low or
moderate, with no reported casualties outside Chile.
The quake was so powerful that GPS measurements
later showed that it had shifted the city of Concepción
at least three meters to the west. 525 people reportedly
lost their lives, and 25 people went missing in Chile,
because of the earthquake and the following tsunami,
which reached a height of 2.6m in Concepción.
Tsunami Warnings Save Lives
A natural warning sign for the impending tsunami
in the 2010 disaster was the nearby earthquake that
in itself was devastating. Along the Chilean coast,
local knowledge had been passed on for generations
in the fishing communities: “If an earthquake is so
strong that you can not stand up – run for the hills”.
A wise precaution, but one that left visitors and those
without the local knowledge stranded.
Chile's Pacific coastline is more than 78,000
kilometers long. Not willing to rely on local knowledge
alone, the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service
of the Chilean Navy (SHOA) is dedicated to providing
as much advance warning as possible on tsunamis. To
this end, SHOA has installed one of the world’s most
advanced early warning tsunami detection networks,
delivered by Vaisala.
The network consists of 31 Vaisala Data Collection
Platforms communicating near real time data to
SHOA, which acts as Chile’s national tsunami warning
center. The sites are located all along the Chilean
coastline and the nearby Islands including Easter
Island. Each site is configured with redundant water
level measurement sensors and multiple methods
of telemetry, such as sea-level radar, tide scale,
differential pressure sensors, sea water temperature
gauges, and at some sites, a fully equipped Vaisala
Automatic Weather Station.
For more information about Tsunami warning systems,
please visit the Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission's website at www.ioc-unesco.org and for sea
level monitoring www.ioc-sealevelmonitoring.org
54 Vaisala Oyj Corporate Responsibility Report 2011