Asia to install tsunami alert

Asia to install tsunami alert

THAILAND: Disaster early warning towers will be in place across southeast Asia in time for the first anniversary of the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people, the United Nations said on Friday.

The UN Development Program said it would build five equipment- packed monitoring towers off the coasts of Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam and the Philippines with the help of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC).

The US$500,000 project should minimize the risk of false alarms like one issued by Thailand last week following an earthquake underneath the Indian Ocean, Suvit Yodmani, head of the non-governmental ADPC, said.

"If you have too many of these false alarms, then people are going to be quite nonchalant if it happens to be the real thing," he said.

Other countries in the region, including Australia, have already installed the Hawaiian-made monitoring systems that send back information to a centralized database known as the Global Sea Level Observing System. The new towers in Southeast Asia will be connected to that system. -- Reuters