Two massive undersea earthquakes occurred – one off the coast of Chile, while the other, north of the Philippines. Thankfully, no lives were lost because these were simulated for Exercise Pacific Wave 2006, the first-ever region-wide drill for the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System, held on 16 and 17 May 2006.

More than 30 nations participated to test each country's lines of communication, review tsunami response procedures and promote emergency preparedness. First, each country received a mock tsunami warning bulletin sent from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii and the Northwest Pacific Tsunami Advisory Centre in Japan. Just as in a real situation, each country then disseminated the message to their respective local emergency management and response authorities to simulate the necessary chain of events.

In Singapore, this was an opportunity for MSD and other relevant agencies to exercise the decision making process, without alarming the general public.

"This was the first tsunami exercise in the region, and it was a great success. We made several valuable observations and realise that some operational procedures would need further fine-tuning, like increasing the communication bandwidth to make disaster-related advisories reach the relevant agencies faster," said Mr Foong Chee Leong, Director-General of Meteorological Services. "It was timely too, because we had just recently completed Phase I of the National Tsunami Early Warning System and this exercise tested our preparedness."

In fact, an open line of communication among our neighbours has been NEA's focus, especially since the massive Indian
Ocean Tsunami in December 2004. Given that natural disasters know no geographical boundaries, it helps to be talking to the neighbours.

In April 2005, NEA hosted a special meeting with the ASEAN Sub-committee on Meteorology and Geophysics on establishing monitoring networks of tsunami early warning systems in ASEAN. NEA also hosted a World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Workshop on Multi-Hazard Warning Centre's Concept of Operation for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning System in November 2005. This workshop brought together meteorological experts from the region to evaluate current practices and exchange information on procedures for setting up warning centres and recommended guidelines.