BANGI, 2 Nov. 2011 – Researchers from the National University of Malaysia (UKM) have been urged to set up better communication technology tools which can withstand any natural disaster.
Visiting Professor Dr Masaru Kamada, Director Centre of Information Technology, Ibraki University Japan (IUJ) said this in his talk on “ICT in Natural Disaster – A report from Ibraki near Fukushima” . The talk was organised by the Institute of Space Science (Angkasa) UKM.He narrated his experience during the earthquake last March which led to the meltdown of the Fukushima Nuclear plant.
When the earthquake struck, he was in his office located on the 7th floor in one of the buildings in IUJ which was about 200 km from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Yet the 9 Richter scale earthquake swayed the buildings there from left to right.
Everybody was running away from copier machines and other furnitures which were moving because of the tremors. Water and electricity supply was cut off and almost every communication tool was down.
Prof Kamada said Twitter was the only mean of communications that broke through when everything else failed. Twitter is a social network which uses the telephone network to send short massages.
Prof Kamada said people cannot reach their families or friends through their mobile phones as the networks were down as everybody tried to call their loved ones. The phone networks were not designed to handle such an overwhelming number of calls all at once.
Fortunately with Twitter, they were able to send their messages to friends and families even when the mobile networks are overloaded, he said.
He likened a twitter massage to a cyclist in a bumper to bumper road congestion. The cyclist can still get to his destination faster than other vehicles on a congested road.
After the Fukushima earthquake, Prof Matada thought of developing something similar in concept as the twitter. He is currently working with Professor Dr Yuichi Teranishi from Osaka University, on setting up a new communication technology infrastructure for Japan.
He suggested researchers in UKM to look into ways of developing a communication technology that will stand the test of natural disasters. There is a tendency of such disasters repeating and they usually struck with very little warning.
The earthquake claims as many as 20,000 lives and led to the shutdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.Prof Dr Mohd Alauddin Mohd Ali, Director of Angkasa, researchers, lecturers and students attended the talk held at the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment yesterday.
( http://www.ukm.my/news/index.php/en/extras/885-ukm-researchers-urged-to-develop-disaster-proof-communication-technology-tools.html)
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