Never too late for early warning system

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.