3 min readBengaluruFeb 9, 2026 08:19 PM IST
India is working towards setting up a Regional Service Centre (RSC) in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, aiming to strengthen its existing tsunami monitoring and warning system.
“The current system is designed to mainly detect tsunamis triggered by earthquakes. India is now working on developing a good strategy, where the system will be able to also detect tsunamis triggered by non-seismic causes. This will truly be the next-generation tsunami warning system,” T M Balakrishnan Nair, director of Indian National Centre for Ocean Information and Services (INCOIS), told The Indian Express. INCOIS is the nodal agency operating the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC).
Globally, 80% of tsunamis are triggered by undersea earthquakes and the remaining occur following non-seismic causes like landslides, submarine volcanic activity and mudslides.
As a first step towards upgrading the existing system, India plans to implement a Rs 300-crore project in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. INCOIS has proposed to establish the RSC — the first-of-its-kind in India in terms of a tsunami-related coordination centre — at Vijaynagar along the Swaraj Dweep in the Andaman and Nicobar. This centre will also offer services to partnering countries, including Sri Lanka, having coasts along the Indian Ocean.
Another first to come up as part of this project will be the laying of 270-km-long sub-sea cables along the subduction zone, the area where the movement between two tectonic plates triggers earthquakes and volcanic activity.
At present, INCOIS receives earthquake signals and processes its tsunami potential at its Hyderabad centre. These signals are captured by the tidal gauges and surface buoys deployed along the Indian coast and at strategic locations in the north Indian Ocean basin, respectively. But this method of marine data gathering poses limitations with surface buoys often getting stolen or vandalised. Sometimes, data from satellites is also insufficient.
“With the proposed sub-sea cable, the issue pertaining to data gaps gets addressed,” Nair said.
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The latest infrastructure can further facilitate the monitoring of acoustic signals, which are faster in capturing earthquake signals than the existing network.
While it may not have experienced a tsunami so far, India’s west coast is far more vulnerable to tsunamis triggered by the non-seismic sources, INCOIS experts said.
“This is due to fragile marine geology and the presence of underwater mud volcanoes along the Makran coast…” Nair explained.
India’s only known volcano, at the Barren islands located along the Andaman Sea, may be largely dormant but holds potential threat. And if the epicentre of the earthquake or the volcanism is located close to the Andaman and Nicobar islands, then, experts warn, the severest to be affected by tsunami would be the islanders.
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“This is why, India is heavily investing in the Andaman and Nicobar,” the INCOIS director stated.