Communicating Life-Saving Information in Emergencies: Implementation of Multi-Hazard Early Warning System in India

Disaster risk reduction is a pressing global challenge owing to climate change and other anthropogenic factors. Communicating timely, trusted, and actionable life-saving information to the public in emergency or disaster situations can make a significant difference by reducing the potential impacts and improving preparedness and mitigation efforts. In the direction of building a disaster-resilient India, inline with the global initiatives like Early Warnings for All, an end-to-end AI-driven Multi-Hazard Early Warning System has been established, standardizing and streamlining the flow of disaster warning dissemination in the country. The system utilizes International Telecommunication Union (ITU’s) Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) for disaster warning information exchange between the entities. Existing non-CAP compliant legacy infrastructure have also been integrated with the system by implementation of cost-efficient Interworking Systems (IWS). More ways for enhanced communication, making use of different ICTs and networks, including telecom (SMS and Cell Broadcast), broadcasting (Radio and Television), satellite, internet (Mobile Application, Web Dashboards, Browser-based Notifications), public addressing systems (Coastal Sirens, Railway Passenger announcement systems) etc. have been integrated for ensuring last mile reachability. The implementation of an indigenously developed cell broadcast system allows warnings to be disseminated within a few seconds to a large area population. Satellite based messaging services have been integrated for areas with no network coverage, such as alerting fishermen in high sea and targeting the tough terrain. The platform has been rigorously utilized in recent disaster situations, including Cyclone Michaung, Biparjoy, Mandous, Sitrang, etc. and more than 14 billion SMS have been disseminated till date across different geographical regions. It is operational across PAN India in all 36 State/ UTs, integrating 100+ stakeholders on the converged platform, supporting dissemination in over 22 regional languages, and addressing massive climatic, digital, linguistic, and geographic diversity in the country. The collective efforts have resulted in key advancements in the direction of disaster risk reduction.