IOC/ITSU-XIII/3 - International Co-ordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific, Thirteenth Session, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, 10-13 September 1991

The Chairman, Mr. R. Hagemeyer, opened the Thirteenth Session of the IOC International Co-ordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific at 10.00 on 10 September 1991.

The Group acknowledged the statements given by the Chairman who invited the Session to propose mechanisms and procedures for making the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific more effective and organized so that it can cope with the increased demands for better and reliable warnings.

The Group noted with appreciation the welcoming address presented by Dr. Mario Martinez Garcia, Director of the Centro de Investigacion Cientifica y Educacion Superior (CICESE), the full text of which is given in Annex V to the Summary Report.

The Technical Secretary of the Session, Dr. I. Oliounine, Senior Assistant Secretary IOC, on behalf of the Secretary IOC, welcomed the participants and paid tribute to the Government of Mexico and CICESE for hosting the Session and providing the necessary support and facilities. In his statement he emphasized that though tsunamis occur infrequently and there is always a danger for the warning system to become out -dated and ineffective due to people's short memory, Member States in the Pacific should always need to be on alert and to guard against this.

He called on the Group to make decisions which may establish a workable strategy to guide the IOC's own direct activities in the tsunami warning system and to enable the IOC to fulfil it's role in this field as a joint specialized mechanism for co-ordinating marine research and service activities within the United Nations System.

The Chairman of the Group thanked all speakers for their valuable advice, and kind and encouraging words. He invited the Group to express its profound gratitude to all those who have been associated with the development of the Tsunami Warning System and who could not come to the Session because of different reasons. The names of Prof. S. Soloviev, Mr. G. Burton, Mr. W. Rapatz were specially mentioned. He thanked them all for their generous contributions to the success of the ITSU programme.

The Chairman then invited the Group to adopt the Provisional Agenda. The Agenda was adopted and is presented in Annex I.

The Group accepted the proposal by the Republic of Korea to desigoate Mr. F. Stephenson (Canada) as Rapporteur for the Session. 9 The Technical Secretary briefly introduced the time schedule, identified changes in the List of Documents and reviewed the documentation (Annex IV).

The List of Participants is Annex III.

Finally, the Representative of the local organizing committee, Mrs. Elena Enriquez-Silva, informed the participants of the local arrangements.

 Informational Documents