The NSW State Emergency Service (SES) will partner with the Taree Old Bar Surf Live Saving Club and the Lions Club of Old Bar on Sunday, November 5 for a community event in recognition of World Tsunami Awareness Day.
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The event will be staged at the Old Bar Surf Club and will run between 11am and 2pm.
There will be a free sausage sizzle and information on tsunamis.
NSW SES Mid North Coast region controller Tony Day said the event is a great opportunity for residents to discuss tsunami risks with SES volunteers and learn about tsunami warnings.
“There will also be information on how warnings will be issued, the natural signs of tsunamis and maps of Old Bar showing areas that would need to be evacuated in the event of a tsunami impacting that area,” he said.
“We want to help people living by the coast to understand tsunami warnings and to identify where they would need to go in the event of a land inundation threat warning, when there is potential for a series of waves to cause major flooding of low lying coastal areas.”
There will also be giveaways, activities for children, storm response trucks and flood boats on display.
Tsunamis are a series of waves generated by a number of sources including, vertical movements in the sea floor as the result of large earthquakes, underwater or coastal volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts and coastal landslides.
Tsunamis are rare events, but can be extremely deadly. Worldwide over the past 100 years, 58 tsunamis have claimed more than 260,000 lives, or an average of 4,600 per disaster, surpassing any other natural hazard.
Tsunami warnings can be categorised as no threat warning (an undersea earthquake has been detected, however it has not generated a tsunami, or the tsunami poses no threat to Australia), marine and immediate foreshore threat warning (potential for dangerous rips, waves and strong ocean currents in the marine environment and possible localised overflow onto the immediate foreshore) and land inundation threat warning (potential for major land inundation of low-lying coastal areas, flooding, dangerous rips, waves and strong ocean currents).
For more information, visit the NSW SES website or the NSW SES Taree City Unit Facebook page.