CHENNAI: The buoy deployed by Thailand's National Disaster Warning Centre (NDWC) in the Bay of Bengal to monitor wave height and provide early tsunami warning was retrieved by the Indian Coast Guard after it was reported to have broken free from its moorings due to rough weather.
According to an Indian Coast Guard spokesman, the buoy drifted into the North Andaman Sea making landfall on the shores of West Island. NDWC, Thailand, approached the Directorate of Disaster Management, Port Blair to seek assistance of the Indian Coast Guard for locating and recovering the buoy.
On receipt of information from the State Emergency Operation Centre, Port Blair, the Indian Coast Guard immediately launched sea-air coordinated search operations to locate and recover the buoy.
Coast Guard aircraft deployed for aerial search located the buoy on the shores of West Island and relayed the coordinates to a Coast Guard ship operating in the area. Despite rough weather and high swell of the seas, Indian Coast Guard Ship Rajveer successfully recovered the buoy on July 19 and towed the important ocean observing instrument to Diglipur.
The buoy is cylindrical in shape with 2.6 meter diameter and weighs around 4000 kgs approximately. The buoy is being handed over to Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) for subsequent handing over to NDWC, Thailand.
Interestingly, the Indian Coast Guard had recovered a Chinese data buoy three years ago on the shores of Kamrota island in the Nicobar district of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Indian National Centre for Oceanic Information (INCOIS), Hyderabad, had said that Chinese officials informed them about the drifting of the buoy towards Indian waters. The data buoy was deployed in international waters and drifted towards the Andaman and Nicobar Islands after breaking free from its moorings.