Early warning systems for quake to be set up

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)