Tsunami-ravaged nations meet on warning system

Tsunami-ravaged nations meet on warning system

Joseph Coleman, Associated Press/Phuket, Thailand

Indonesia lacks tsunami-detecting tide gauges, and one of Sri
Lanka's two earthquake monitoring stations is hobbled by software
troubles. Thailand needs to upgrade communications to warn
tourists of danger.

Government ministers from tsunami-ravaged Asian nations are
meeting on the badly damaged resort island of Phuket on Friday
and Saturday, assessing such needs as they plan for a proposed
tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean.

The meeting, at a hotel just yards (meters) from a coast hit
by the Dec. 26 tsunami disaster, follows a broad endorsement of a
warning system by a UN conference in Japan last week. Several
nations, including the United States and Germany, have drawn up
plans for how to set the network up.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, in Phuket ahead of the
meeting, said on Thursday that his country would offer US$10
million toward the international warning system. Other countries
have pledged at least US$8 million to the effort.

The Pacific Ocean is already covered by a U.S.-based warning
system, extending protection to 26 countries. But the Indian
Ocean region has no such safeguard, and experts say a warning
network could have saved countless lives in last month's
catastrophe.

The task will not be easy.

Southern Asian nations have some monitoring equipment for
earthquakes and other natural phenomena, but officials say it
needs to be expanded to tsunami detection. Bangladesh, for
example, has a cyclone forecasting system. India has access to
information from floating ocean monitors, under an international
environmental program.

But with some of that equipment either outdated or in
disrepair, officials are trying to figure out what additional
hardware is needed: for example, more seismic stations to quickly
register the magnitude of underwater quakes, more ocean monitors
to alert officials that a tsunami is coming, and updated
communications to get the warnings to coastal residents.

Then, the national warning systems have to be melded into a
regional network. Experts also say much work remains to be done
to assess the vulnerability of individual towns to tsunamis,
build seawalls and breakwaters, establish evacuation routes and
educate residents about what to do in an emergency.

"The weakest links are not the technical instruments ... it is
the organization that assesses risk, delivers the message and
takes action," Patricio Bernal, executive secretary of the UN's
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, said at last week's
meeting in Japan.

The United Nations has pushed for quick action while the
world's attention is focused on the disaster, which killed more
than 140,000 people across 11 nations. The UN Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization has proposed a warning
system for the Indian Ocean that would cost US$30 million and be
running in a year.

Ministers from dozens of countries and UN agencies are
participating in this weekend's meetings. Some were scheduled to
take an hours-long tour of the areas savaged by the tsunami,
which killed more than 5,300 people in Thailand, many of them
foreign tourists. On Saturday, UN agencies are to brief ministers
on early warning systems.

The Phuket meeting is one of a string of gatherings focused on
the tsunami. Earlier this week, experts and officials met in
Beijing, China. On Tuesday, delegates from hard-hit Indonesia
called for creation of a network of earthquake detectors linked
to the Global Positioning System, a satellite system run by the
U.S. Defense Department that is widely used for commercial
navigation.

The receivers would complement wave sensors mounted on ocean
buoys to help experts predict when and where a tsunami is likely
to strike.