ARLA/CLUSTER: Comunicações de emergência promovidas pelos radioamadores no Nepal

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Ham Radio Emergency Communications in Nepal

David Witkowski W6DTW writes in Make: magazine about the work of radio
amateurs in connecting earthquake-ravaged Nepal

In the pre-dawn hours of April 25, when my phone buzzed “Q Q Q” — the
code I had set to notify me when the USGS Earthquake Notification
Service registers a quake above a certain seismic level — I had to
check and re-check to make sure it was right: a 7.8 Mw earthquake had
struck Nepal only 48 miles northwest of Kathmandu. Still, it wasn’t
completely unexpected. I serve as strategic advisor to Radio Mala, an
organization that has been working for five years to bring amateur
radio to Nepal in preparation for just such an event. This earthquake
was not an “if,” but a “when.”

The area known as the Kathmandu Valley experiences massive earthquakes
about every 70 to 80 years, and the last major quake (estimated to
have been 8.0 Mw) occurred in 1934. Seismologists’ predictions were
only a year off for this quake. The April 2015 Nepal earthquake was
devastating due to its intensity, proximity to densely populated
areas, and large aftershocks.

This is a story about a tool — amateur radio — that has helped, and
will continue to help, and those of us who are working to deploy it.
We call ourselves Radio Mala, and in Nepal, before and after the
earthquake, we have distributed radios and expertise in an effort to
improve communication and alleviate suffering.

Read the full Make: story at
http://makezine.com/2015/09/09/the-great-nepali-radio-shake-up/

Radio Mala
http://www.gnpn.org/#!radio-mala/c1gwo