Never too late for early warning system
Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta
People living on the slopes of Mount Merapi in Central Java know all about early warning systems. They live under the shadow of the world's most active volcanoes with the knowledge that it might erupt one day, and they are taught what to do in such a situation.
They know about the forbidden zone -- where they cannot settle -- and they know about the different alert levels, from first to fourth, and that when it reaches the last, that they must evacuate. They are ready for the worst.
No such system existed for the Acehnese in Meulaboh, Banda Aceh and other towns and villages ravaged on Dec. 26 by the deadly earthquake and tsunami. No such early warning system existed for countries bordering the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea, either. Thus, the tsunamis unleashed by the 9.0-magnitude quake off the western coast of Aceh also brought untold death and destruction in townships as far away as Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Thailand.
The earthquake might not have been predictable, and therefore, the death and destruction it caused was possibly unpreventable. However, those countries that suffered the greatest losses were those that were hit by the full force of the tsunamis -- they were unprepared and hence, completely exposed.
The massive tidal waves were detected by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, but the center only deals with countries on the Pacific Rim. The warnings that reached some Indian Ocean states that Sunday morning about the impending disaster did not raise adequate alarm simply because those countries had no facilities nor capacity to deal with such a crisis
Experts believe that some of the deaths in last week's Asia quake disaster -- now exceeding 125,000 -- could have been prevented if an early warning system existed for the Indian Ocean.
Pacific states like Chile, Japan, Taiwan and the United States -- California, Hawaii and Oregon, in particular -- have installed "tsunameters" and, more importantly, incorporated such an alert into their public education system. Schools, businesses and government institutes conduct regular safety drills, such as moving to high ground at the first sign of tsunamis. Many lives in Pacific states have been spared from earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and hurricanes in the last 50 years or so thanks to the system.
The system had not been implemented in Indian Ocean states because tsunamis are rare occurrences in this area, unlike in the Pacific.
According to geologists, the region experiences seismic activity of such a magnitude once every 700 years or so. History, however, has shown that the last major seismic disaster to hit the area was 121 years ago in 1883, when Mount Krakatoa off the coast of Java erupted violently and killed some 36,500 people across the Indian and Pacific oceans.
In the case of Indonesia, which straddles both oceans, geography is not on its side.
Last week's tsunami ranks as the most devastating on record according to National Geographic News; the most damaging tsunami on record before 2004 was one in 1782 that killed about 40,000 following an earthquake in the South China Sea.
Still fresh in the minds of Indonesians is the tsunami of December 1992, caused by a marine earthquake, that swept away villages on the northern coast of Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara province, killing nearly 1,700 people.
For Indonesia, it is neither too late nor too soon to set up a tsunami early warning system.
As rare as they may be, when tsunamis hit, they cause destruction on a massive scale; and their targets can be anywhere, along the shores of the Indian or Pacific oceans, or those of the more tranquil Java and South China seas -- depending on the triggering quake.
An archipelagic country of over 17,000 islands and more than 54,700 kilometers of coastline located on the "Ring of Fire", Indonesia is particularly vulnerable not only to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions, but also tsunamis, said Achmad Djumarma Wirakusumah of the Directorate of Volcanology and Geological Hazards Mitigation.
In a paper at the Second International Conference on Early Warning System in October 2003, Achmad said as much as 20 percent of Indonesia's 230 million people live in areas prone to these natural disasters.
Indian Ocean states have reviewed their policies on dealing with tsunamis in the wake of last Sunday's disaster.
While India has decided to go it alone in installing its own early warning system, Singapore has proposed a region-wide system similar to the one in the Pacific.
Japan plans to propose a regional system when it hosts a world conference on disaster mitigation on Jan. 17 in Kobe, and is prepared to provide technical assistance, using its vast experience in dealing with tsunamis.
However, even an early warning system would have done little for the people in Meulaboh -- over 80 percent of which is thought to be lost -- because of its proximity to the earthquake's epicenter. Its residents would probably not have had any time to move to higher ground, as tidal waves hit the city only minutes after the tremor.
The people in Banda Aceh, on the other hand, had some 40 precious minutes to evacuate, while the people of the 10 other countries would have had at least one hour to move to safety.
As costly as it is at US$250,000 each, installing a tsunameter is probably the easiest part of implementing the system; more challenging will be setting up an interstate cooperation between countries on the Indian Ocean.
An even greater challenge will be educating the people in vulnerable coastal areas about the dangers they might face, but it can be done.
Just as those who live on Mt. Merapi, coastal people must also learn about the potential hazards of their environment and how to read the warning signs before disaster strikes.
Many people -- children and adults both -- on that fateful Sunday morning were drawn to the sea when they saw the water recede unusually rapidly, exposing the seabed. Little did they realize this was an ominous sign of an impending tsunami, so rather than moving as fast as they could away from the sea, they went right into it.
After the first wave struck, many people returned to the shore to check the damage and look for survivors. Again, little did they know that more powerful tidal waves usually follow the first wave.
A comprehensive early warning system with a public education program could have been the difference between life and death for many of those now lost.
The writer is Editor in Chief of The Jakarta Post.