Warning systems set up across Asia after tsunami disaster

BY GRIFFIN Shea

TON SAI, Thailand - Two tsunami warning towers now dot the skyline in the idyllic vacation village of Ton Sai on Thailand's Phi Phi island - a welcome sight, according to 35-year-old shopowner Fatima Thamnakla.

"If it happens again, it will be better than last time," she tells AFP, pointing out the towers on the tourist beach and near the village mosque.

But she adds matter-of-factly: "We won't know how well the warning system works until it happens again." When giant waves unleashed by a violent under-sea earthquake crashed onto the shores of 11 Indian Ocean countries last year, many governments had no way to warn the public of the imminent danger, leading to the massive death toll of around 217,000.

Forewarned, many of the victims could have fled to the safety of higher ground when the three-metre-high waves swept inland.

From Indonesia to India, those countries blindsided by the tsunami have since launched efforts to avert a repeat, setting up warning systems, improving cross-border coordination and increasing community awareness.

The national emergency plans being put in place are meant to supplement international efforts led by the United Nations to set up a regional early warning system similar to that already used in the Pacific.

Top scientists and government officials from over 25 nations have been meeting this week in Hyderabad, India, to disucss progress on the regional system which it is hoped will be implemented next year.

Individual countries, meanwhile, have been busy making their own plans.

In mid-November, Indonesia set in motion the initial phase of its early warning system, activating two sets of moored surface buoys off western Sumatra to pick up and transmit data about sea tremors from ocean floor sensors.

The instruments were the first of a total of 15 sets, along with more than 100 seismographs, due to be installed along the coast of the vast archipelago - the country hardest hit by the December 26, 2004 tragedy.

Information will be conveyed via satellite to a monitoring station in West Sumatra province, from which it will be relayed to the public via mobile text message, e-mail, fax and telephone.

"The more instruments we have, the better it will be," Edi Prihantoro, an official at the Indonesian research and technology ministry, said last month.

Thailand set up the National Disaster Warning Center in May 2005 to deal with both the aftermath of the tsunami and to ward off future catastrophes, and the country's early warning system will soon be in place.

The government is due to install warning towers in Phuket by year's end, with another 32 towers scheduled to be set up along the country's Andaman coast by March.

"I think in terms of preparedness, Thailand is doing extremely well," says Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the World Health Organization's deputy regional director for Southeast Asia.

"In fact, they have the best preparedness plan already. Other countries are also following Thailand's example." -(AFP)