At the 5th Session of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWS) held in Putrajaya, Malaysia in April 2008, the Member States recognised the need to test the functioning of the IOTWS and decided to establish a Task Team to consider and provide a detailed plan for a proposed Indian Ocean-wide exercise in 2009. The “IOWave09” Task Team, with Indonesia as chair, reported back to the ICG/IOTWS at its 6th session in Hyderabad, India in April 2009 recommending that an Indian Ocean-wide exercise should be held on 14th October 2009 to coincide with World Disaster Reduction Day. This website provides details of the planned IOWave 09 exercise in which all IOTWS Member States are encouraged to participate to the extent possible. The exercise will simulate the Indian Ocean countries being placed in a Tsunami Warning situation and require the National Tsunami Warning Centres (NTWC) and (optionally) the National Disaster Management Organisations (NDMO) in each Member State to implement their Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). The exercise scenario will replicate the earthquake parameters of the Magnitude 9.2 earthquake which occurred off the coast of Aceh on 26th December 2004 and the simulated tsunami will take approximately 12 hours to travel from its source to the southern coast of South Africa. Exercise bulletins will be issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) and the exercise will be run in real time. An IOWave09 Exercise Manual will be distributed in the near future with further details of the exercise scenario as well as the text of the simulated warning bulletins from JMA and PTWC. To ensure that the NTWCs in each country are fully prepared for this functional exercise, the Task Team has decided to run a tabletop exercise on 14th September using the same scenario that will be used on 14th October. There will thus be 2 stages to the IOWave09 exercise: 1. 14th September 2009 – Tabletop Exercise Who should be involved?: National Tsunami Warning Centres, National Disaster Management Organisations, Local Disaster Management Organisations Scenario: Aceh earthquake of 26th December 2004 Start time: 0800hrs UTC Timescale: At NTWC’s discretion 2. 14th October 2009 – Main Exercise Who should be involved?: National Tsunami Warning Centres; National Disaster Management Organisations; local communities, to the extent decided by each Member State. Scenario: Aceh earthquake of 26th December 2004 Start time: 0100hrs UTC Timescale: Real-time