Suva, Fiji: Mobile companies Vodafone Fiji Limited and Digicel Fiji sent tsunami alerts to hundreds of thousands of their customers nationwide.

These alerts, issued by the Disaster Management Committee, followed tsunami warnings from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii at around 10.30 yesterday morning.

Vodafone issued the alert to over 700,000 of its customers 10 minutes after it received the warning.

The alerts urged people, particularly those in coastal areas, to move to higher grounds and to stay tuned on the radio for updates.
Digicel Fiji also issued its text alert message calling for immediate evacuation of coastal areas to higher ground.

Mobile customers, at least those around Suva, experienced a congested network as they tried to call their families and loved ones to warn them of the tsunami alert after four earthquakes, the last measuring 8 on the Richter Scale, struck yesterday morning off Vanuatu.

Vodafone manager corporate affairs Shailendra Prasad said a clogged network was to be expected in such circumstances.

"In times of emergencies, people operate in a panic mode," he said.

“Just like you have traffic congestion when everybody hits the road at the same time, the same phenomenon occurs when everybody tries to make simultaneous calls in times of national emergency.

"Even though calls in many parts of Fiji were normal, there was some congestion experienced in the Suva-Nausori corridor.

"This is to be expected, especially when almost 30 per cent of the total Fiji population resides in this region."

Mr Prasad said the company had provisions for excess capacity on the network to cater for a sudden surge in traffic.

He did not say whether there was a capacity to automatically generate such alerts in the event of a national emergency.

The issue of a national alert system has been a point of discussion in light of recent emergencies.