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| Thursday, 30 December 2004 |
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Work on Indian Ocean tsunami warning likely to begin in January LOS ANGELES,Wednesday (AFP) International disaster officials will likely lay down the groundwork for a life-saving and urgently-needed Indian Ocean tsunami alert system at a key meeting next month, a top expert said. The rush for a global alert mechanism came as the death toll surged past 55,000 following Sunday's tidal wave hit nine Asian countries, the first one in recorded history to hit a string of countries across an ocean. Talks about setting up a warning system similar to the one in the Pacific Ocean will take place at the UN-sponsored World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan, said Dr Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. "Things are moving very quickly towards establishing an Indian Ocean warning system and I know there will be a lot of discussion in Kobe with delegates saying that we have to do something immediately," she said. "Something is going to happen, it's just a matter of how. I know the US and other nations want to help. "We want to do this in a way that is inclusive and collaborative and on an international scale," Kong said, suggesting that the International Co-ordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific (ICG/ITSU) should be dusted off to lead the effort. Thousands of lives could have been saved if a similar alert system to that in the Pacific Ocean had been in place in the stricken countries, which include Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India, Kong said. Kong, whose center detected the 9.0-magnitude quake that spawned the deadly walls of water, but could do nothing to raise the alarm halfway across the world, will be an International Oceanographic Commission (IOC) delegate to the January 18-22 Kobe conference. The UNESCO-run IOC funds the cash-strapped International Tsunami Warning Center, which shares its Hawaii facilities with the US weather service's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Kong said she expected the unprecedented devastation in Asia to become the focus of the Kobe conference and that delegates would agree on what should be done to establish an Indian Ocean alert. Those plans could take form in about six months, she said."This is a real opportunity to do something," she said. Meanwhile Indian Government decided to install sea floor pressure recording system in the Indian Ocean, to send warnings in the event of a tsunami building up in the seas, in a bid to avoid recurrence of the catastrophe caused by the earthquake-induced killer waves in the coastal areas of south India. It has also decided to join a network of 26 countries which warn each other of any changes in the sea pressure and possibility of the onset of high tidal waves related to earthquake in the waters, and start the work on microzonation of Delhi soon, Minister of State for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said after a meeting with the officials of his ministry on the devastation. |
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