A short history of international tsunami warning systems The history of hazard mitigation tracks well with the history of destructive tsunamis and the history of coastal hydrodynamics (Synolakis & Bernard 2006).
Following the 1946 Alaska-generated tsunami that killed 173 people in Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) was established in Hawaii to warn against distant tsunamis affecting the United States. In response to the 1960
Chilean tsunami that killed 1000 people in Chile, 61 in Hawaii and 199 in Japan, the international community formed two international bodies, representing science and governments, to provide distant warnings to nations of the Pacific
Ocean. The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics formed the Tsunami Commission (science) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization/Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (governments) formed the Intergovernmental Coordinating Group for Tsunami Warnings in the Pacific (ITSU). The United States offered PTWC as the operations centre for the entire Pacific Basin and offered to support the creation and maintenance of the International Tsunami Information Center. Thus, the international effort to mitigate the impacts of tsunamis began over 40 years ago.