KL to build tsunami warning system

KL to build tsunami warning system

MALAYSIA: Malaysia will set up a tsunami warning system costing US$5 million by the end of this year, the government said on Sunday.

American and Japanese maritime experts will help install the system around the coast of the northern peninsular, as well as Sabah and Sarawak state on Borneo island, Science and Technology Minister Jamaludin Jarjis was quoted as saying by the national news agency, Bernama.

The sultanate of Brunei, which borders Sarawak, is expected to share the system with Malaysia, Jamaludin added, without saying whether Brunei would bear part of the cost.

Jamaludin's comments came as thousands of Malaysians in Sabah returned to their coastal homes on Sunday after a false tsunami scare that followed a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in the neighboring southern Philippines on late Saturday.

Residents fled for higher ground after the prime minister's Crisis and Disaster Center issued Malaysia's first-ever tsunami alert following the Philippine quake, local media reported. --AP