KARACHI: Karachi can be “wiped out” by a tsunami, an official said here on Wednesday after a drill simulating a major earthquake in the Indian Ocean.

The test, and one carried out a day earlier that simulated another quake off Indonesia, were designed to check an early-warning system set up after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which killed more than 230,000 people.

The exercise organised by the UN was based on a hypothetical 9.0-magnitude quake in the Makran Trench, off the coast of Pakistan.

“This would create waves 0.9 to seven metres high that could reach Karachi in one and a half hours,” Tauseef Alam, the Chief Meteorologist who was supervising the tests, said. “This could wipe out the city as the waves would be immensely powerful.”

Karachi was hit by a tsunami in 1945 that killed at least 4,000 people, Mr Alam said. “The city is vulnerable because there is a chance of another tsunami in the same vicinity but we don’t know when,” he said. In the event of a tsunami, real-time data would be sent to the Met Office in Karachi from Indonesian, Australian and Indian centres.

An alarm would sound when an alert was issued and the team would start disseminating the data to around a dozen disaster management departments. “Our goal is to ensure the timely and effective notification of tsunamis, to educate communities at risk about safety preparedness and to improve our overall coordination,” Mr Alam said.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2014