The Swedish Church Abroad Gets Tsunami Warning

The Swedish Churches in Australia and Thailand has signed up for subscriptions that give tsunami warnings to mobile phones.  They are also doing co-operation with the Norwegian Seamen Church in Singapore and California (US) on such subscriptions.   These are subscriptions where the annual normal rate of tsunami warnings should be 2-3 warnings. With these worldwide warnings they will be the first persons to know when critical situations may occur.   Even in California where maybe cell phones are used, this system will give warning as text messages. In rest of the world SMS messages by GSM mobile phone networks are used.   As The Swedish Church Abroad is part of the national crisis management for the Swedish citizens abroad, these warnings are implemented into crisis- and continuity plans. Not all of these churches are directly in high-risk areas, but they will have an important role while a crisis situation occurs. These can be crisis situations anywhere in Pacific or in Indian Ocean, where they need to assist Swedish travelers or merchant ship crews, who are in high-risk areas while disasters occurs.   In a poll, 2/3 of our subscribers recently have stayed in high-risk areas where no outdoor sirens for local tsunami alarm are available. (RMC subscriber poll in Nov./Dec 2006).   From before the Norwegian Seamen Church Abroad run similar subscriptions at their locations in Australia and Thailand. Also, as part the Norwegian national crisis management for Norwegians abroad, the embassies and general consulates around Pacific and Indian Ocean are operational with these subscriptions.   The subscriptions are a service from the German company A3M, which has been the first company to launch such service for a worldwide market.

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