RI to hold conference on tsunami early warning system
RI to hold conference on tsunami early warning system
Veeramalla Anjaiah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesia -- a country that has suffered more than 115,000 deaths
in the Dec. 26 disaster -- will host an international conference
primarily focused on a tsunami early warning system in close
cooperation with Germany, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda
announced in Jakarta.
Germany is the most generous country in the world in terms of
aid pledges with a total of US$1.17 billion -- $650 million from
government and $522 million from public donations -- to the
tsunami-affected countries.
"During my recent visit to Germany, Chancellor (Gerhard)
Schroeder offered his country's help in establishing an early
warning system in Indonesia. Germany will be sending its
geological experts to Indonesia in February to help Indonesia in
hosting the international conference on a tsunami early warning
system this year," Hassan said on Tuesday at the Foreign Policy
Breakfast Gathering, which was attended by editors, scholars and
public figures.
The Dec. 26 tsunami, which was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude
undersea earthquake off Aceh, has killed more than 175,000 people
in Indonesia and 11 other countries.
The plan to establish a tsunami early warning system in the
Indian Ocean region and Southeast Asia is a follow up to the
consensus reached at the Jan. 6 Special ASEAN Leaders' Meeting on
tsunami disaster in Jakarta.
The system, according to Hassan, will not be exclusively for
Aceh but for the whole of Indonesia, an archipelagic nation with
thousands of islands.
"The whole country faces the threat of a tsunami. German
experts showed me the satellite pictures how several islands of
ours moved from their original place on Dec. 26. That's why we
need this warning system," Hassan said.
The conference will discuss regional cooperation on setting up
the early warning system for hydro-meteorological and geological
hazards on a global scale.
Last week, the United Nations organized a conference on
Mauritius with a special agenda on setting up an early warning
system in the Indian Ocean.
Japan is also currently holding an international conference,
which opened on Tuesday, on disaster reduction in Kobe with a
similar agenda.
Japan, which pledged $500 million in aid to tsunami-hit
countries, has also promised $4 million for the establishment of
the warning system.
But the Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported last week quoting
UNESCO's Koichiro Matsuura that around $30 million was needed for
the regional warning system and $1-$2 million per year to run it.
Given the unprecedented global response, which so far has seen
at least $7 billion raised, the money should not be a problem.
The real problems will be in setting up the system's headquarters
that can efficiently share the data among all the countries
concerned in addition to running public education campaigns about
the tsunami system.
Apparently, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore all
have shown an interest in hosting the regional tsunami early
warning center, which will likely be established by 2006. That
will likely be decided during a regional ministerial meeting in
Thailand on Jan. 28. The UN is also planning to have a global
warning system in place by 2007.
According to experts on the subject, thousands of lives would
have been spared had there been an effective warning system after
the Dec. 26 earthquake.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sent
an alert to 26 Pacific countries, including Indonesia and
Thailand, just after the quake. But due to a lack of an effective
communication system, the alert was never communicated to the
people in Aceh, and came about an hour too late in southern
Thailand.