UNESCO devises strategy for tsunami warning system

UNESCO devises strategy for tsunami warning system

Agence France-Press, Port Louis

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) said on Tuesday it was ready to lead
efforts to set up a global early warning system that could avert
another tragedy on the scale of the Asian tsunami disaster.

"Any such system goes far beyond the installation of seismic
equipment to measure and pinpoint earthquakes," said UNESCO chief
Koichiro Matsuura in a statement issued here on the sidelines of
a UN conference on small islands.

Experts at monitoring institutes in Hawaii and Vienna knew
immediately that an earthquake had taken place off the coast of
Sumatra on Dec. 26, unleashing tidal waves the left more than
156,000 dead.

But no warning system was in place to relay the information to
Indian Ocean countries and allow them to take measure to protect
their citizens.

While the technology to detect earthquakes is available, "what
is missing is the communications networks, public awareness and
national disaster planning that are essential to alert
populations quickly," said UNESCO Director-General Matsuura.

These components are key to educating people about how to help
themselves, rapid evacuations of threatened areas and assisting
those wounded or displaced by disasters, he noted.

UNESCO helped set up the existing tsunami early warning system
for the Pacific in 1968 and maintains that such alert mechanisms
should be in place for the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Caribbean
and South West Pacific.

Matsuura's comments came as delegates from 110 countries
attend the small island's conference in Mauritius this week that
is focusing on the plight of the countries most vulnerable to
natural disasters.

Setting up a global warning system will also be the focus of a
conference in Kobe, Japan next week.

Leading expert Laura Kong from the Hawaii-based International
Tsunami Information Center said scientists, working with
governments and international agencies, were looking at the
stations and networks in place to see what might be needed to set
up a global system.

She said some 10 to 20 deep-water ocean buoys, costing about
US$250,000 each, would probably be needed to monitor water levels
in places where no stations can be built.

Between 50 to 100 water-level stations, at a cost of $30,000
each, would have to be set up as part of the global system, she
said.

"The cost will be negligible compared to the benefit we will
get," said Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World
Meteorological Organization.

"This will be a very effective way to prevent loss of life in
the first place and also to minimize the economic damage," he
said.