*The Risk of Tsunamis in Mexico DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94201*

*Natural Hazards - Impacts, Adjustments and Resilience*

**200**

**Figure 6.**

people being killed [34].

*A Mexican tsunami early warning system (MTEWS).*

their path. It is believed that tsunamis are the deadliest in terms of the proportion of

Following the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the need for a tsunami warning system (TWS) was more than evident; however, it may be argued that the existing TWS may be deficient in dealing with the mitigation of impacts of such events;

moreover, there are still regions worldwide without such systems.


#### **Table 3.**

*Description of the key action points of the model in Figure 6.*

Recent tsunami disasters have highlighted some of these deficiencies; for example, in the case of the 2010 tsunami in Chile, the entity in charge of issuing a tsunami warning failed to do so [5], p. 30 (see "action point" "2"& "7" in **Figure 6** and **Table 3**). The failure to perform this action contributed to fatalities in the coastal communities. More recently, the 28 September Sulawesi tsunami and the 24 December Anak Krakatau (AK) volcano tsunami, both in Indonesia, illustrate deficiencies in TWS too. In the former case, the tsunami warning was issued but the warning was lifted over thirty minutes [4]. However, the city of Palu, located in a narrow bay, was hit hard with waves reaching six metres of height; why were not they warned? the head of the BMKG (Indonesia Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics) argued that "we have no observation data at Palu…", "If we had a tide gauge or proper data in Palu, of course it would have been better" [4]. The tsunami (and earthquake) killed over 2000 people [2]. Finally, regarding the AK volcano tsunami, it is thought that there was not a tsunami warning system for the case of volcano-induced tsunamis; however, the tsunami killed 437 people [3].

It may be argued that a TWS should not be only concerned with the technical infrastructure systems (e.g., tidal gauge, network of buoys, etc.), but also the organisational and human components. Further, it may be argued that the most


**203**

*The Risk of Tsunamis in Mexico*

**Some of the key features of the** 

System 1 TSZ-SMU

**model**

"people-centred" [21, 35].

**4. Conclusions**

**Table 4.**

*model (Figure 6).*

centred" systems.

**Acknowledgements**

CONACYT-No:248219.

**Conflict of interest**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94201*

("Tsunami Caribbean Zone- SMU")

TCZO ("Tsunami Caribbean Zone Operations")

TNZ-CC ("Tsunami Caribbean Zone-Coordination Centre)

difficult aspect is the human factor; there is a need to better understand human behaviour during these events, so that make these communities less vulnerable and resilient to tsunamis. In other words, there is a need for an effective tsunami early warning system able to consider all these components in a coherent manner, such as the system being proposed herein and elsewhere. Further, these systems should be

*Examples of the key players that perform some of the functions of the system in place when compared with the* 

protection, etc.

**system (left & Figure 6)**

protection, etc.

Same as with 1,2 & 5 above, and local/ regional decision-makers, e.g., civil

Same as with 1,2 & 5 above, and local/ regional decision-makers, e.g., civil

**Examples of what perform some of the functions of the existing** 


Local communities living in the zone, including tourists & those working in touristic resorts, such as 'Cancun', 'Playa del

Carmen'.


The paper has presented the risk of tsunamis in Mexico. The approach has been a review of existing literature on historical data of tsunami occurrence in Mexico. The literature survey showed that the tsunami threat comes from local and remote zones. Overall, the review showed that the highest tsunami risk comes from tsunamis induced by earthquakes occurring in the Southern zone of the country (i.e., local zone). The paper has also put forward a preliminary model of a TEWS (Tsunami Early Warning System) for the case of Mexico. However, it needs further research to design the whole networks of the flows of information not only for the case of tsunamis, but also for the case of earthquake early warning "people-

This research was supported by the following grants: SIP-IPN-20201790;

The author declares that he has no competing interests.


### **Table 4.**

*Natural Hazards - Impacts, Adjustments and Resilience*

System Key Components SMU

MTEW-SMU ("Mexican Tsunami Early Warning-SMU")

MTEW-CC ("Mexican Tsunami Early Warning Coordination Centre")

("Tsunami Northern Zone- SMU")

TNZ-CC ("Tsunami Northern Zone-Coordination Centre)

("Tsunami Southern Zone- SMU")

TNZ-CC ("Tsunami Southern Zone-Coordination Centre)

TSZO ("Tsunami Southern Zone Operations")

System 1 TSZ-SMU

TNZO ("Tsunami Northern Zone Operations")

System 1 TNZ-SMU

**Examples of what perform some of the functions of the existing** 

Operations ('circles')



—



etc.


Local communities living in the zone, including tourists & those working in touristic resorts, such as 'Los Cabos', etc.

Local communities living in the zone, including tourists & those working in touristic resorts, such as 'Puerto Vallarta', 'Acapulco', 'Huatulco',

**system (left & Figure 6)**

1. Secretariat of the Navy (SEMAR) manages the Tsunami Warning Centre (CAT); the monitoring, detection, and forecasting centre [33]. 2. Receives information from the SSN (National Seismological

3. Receives the input from the

4. Receives the input from the

Warning coordination centres within

Same as with 1,2 & 5 above, and local/ regional decision-makers, e.g., civil

Same as with 1,2 & 5 above, and local/ regional decision-makers, e.g., civil

Same as with 1,2 & 5 above, and local/ regional decision-makers, e.g., civil

Same as with 1,2 & 5 above, and local/ regional decision-makers, e.g., civil

5. Other (e.g. CICESE, etc.

("square boxes")

Service),

PTWC.

USGS.

[15, 22])

the CAT.

protection, etc.

protection, etc.

protection, etc.

protection, etc.

**Some of the key features of the** 

**model**

Systems 2–5

**202**

*Examples of the key players that perform some of the functions of the system in place when compared with the model (Figure 6).*

difficult aspect is the human factor; there is a need to better understand human behaviour during these events, so that make these communities less vulnerable and resilient to tsunamis. In other words, there is a need for an effective tsunami early warning system able to consider all these components in a coherent manner, such as the system being proposed herein and elsewhere. Further, these systems should be "people-centred" [21, 35].
