Early warning systems for quake to be set up

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia is exploring the possibility of cooperation with the European Economic Community to set up early warning systems for earthquakes.

Indonesia plans to build 21 quake monitoring stations across the archipelago equipped with early warning systems to minimize fatalities in case of disasters, head of the coordinating agency for survey and mapping (Bakosurtanal), R.W. Matindas, said yesterday.

"This cooperation will be important for us because natural disasters have been striking parts of the country at ever increasing frequencies," Matindas said.

The plan comes at a time when deadly tidal waves spurred by major earthquakes are still fresh in the public's mind. Last month, tidal waves killed more than 200 people and caused extensive damage to property and public facilities in East Java.

Earlier this year, a major quake hit Liwa district in Lampung, killing more than 250 people and causing major damage.

Yesterday, an earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale rocked Cilacap, but there were no reports of damage or casualties, the meteorological agency and police said.

The quake struck at 8:57 a.m. local time. The epicenter was in the Indian Ocean, 85 kilometers south of Cilacap in Central Java, a meteorological agency said.

The early warning system, Matindas said, will involve the placement of censor devices on the seabed to monitor changes in marine behavior and transmit the data to the buoy on the ocean's surface.

Instruments in the buoy will then pass the data on to the satellite, which will transmit the signal to ground stations that activate the alarm of the early warning system.

Matindas said some 90 percent of quakes in Indonesia occur at the joints of faults of the Indo-Australian plate in the Indian Ocean and the Eurasian plate in the South China Sea.

He said his agency was in the process of making the heaps of data at his office useful for the public. (prs)