Earlier this week, Indian minister for science, technology and ocean development Kapil Sibal announced the launch of the National Disaster Information System, which will use voice calls, SMS and a public address network to send disaster warnings to a pilot group of Indian citizens.

Using the system, once a warning about a natural disaster is received from the Meteorological Department, Geneva’s server pushes out the message simultaneously in 14 languages through SMS, and dynamically-generated voice messages to wireless public address systems and phones. The entire process is expected to take 33 seconds.

“The pilots are an experiment. The results of the pilots will be placed before the National Disaster Management Authority for a comprehensive project. The pilots will be integrated later with Tsunami Warning Center which is expected to be ready by September 2007,” says Union Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, adding that the project is the first of its kind in the world.

(More information from The Hindu.)