Preparing for natural disasters: Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System to become operational in 2006.

• Author: Jean, Grace
• Position: TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEM - Cover Story

A tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean may become operational as early as next summer, according to an expert familiar with the plans.

"What we've said on paper is we'd like to get a fully operational system up and running by July 2006," said Laura Kong, director of the UNESCO International Tsunami Information Center, based in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Representatives from 28 Indian Ocean nations have united in an intergovernmental coordination group under UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to plan and implement the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System.

"It's trying to bring everyone together to make sure we have a regional system of monitoring and communicating, and alerting at the national level," said Kong.

At the group's first meeting in August, officials set forth a plan calling for the establishment of seven regional tsunami advisory centers in the Indian Ocean basin, the installation and upgrading of coastal sealevel gauges, seismic instruments and stations, and the deployment of deep underwater sensors.

Collectively, the instruments will have the ability to detect earthquakes and to confirm whether or not a tsunami has been generated, said Kong. Then, each individual nation would be responsible for implementing a system to transmit tsunami alerts to its people.

The Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami claimed an estimated 300,000 lives. While there were seismic instruments and some seismographic stations in place at the time to detect earthquakes, there was no tsunami warning system in the region, said Kong. As a result, local authorities and residents could not be forewarned, she said.

Observation of the wave is the most critical piece of tsunami detection. In order to do that, countries need to have coastal or deep ocean gauges in place, said Kong.

Upgrades to seismic instruments and other coastal sea-level gauges in the Indian Ocean will begin this month. The participating nations are in the process of determining which deep ocean tsunami detection technologies to pursue. Germany, India and the United States are among the nations that have technologies available. The U.S. technology, called DART, or Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis, has been recognized as the leading system (see related article).

"DART for sure could have saved lives," said Christian Meinig, director of engineering at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, which developed, designed and built DART.

The multinational group expects to have 23 real-time sea-level stations established in the Indian Ocean by the end of the year.

"All countries in the Indian Ocean basin have some sea-level measuring device operating in their ports and bays. In the majority of cases, these are not real-time instruments," wrote Koichiro Matsuura, director-general of UNESCO, in a speech delivered by Patricio Bernal, executive secretary of UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. The new instruments will operate on solar power to make the signals autonomous from the local energy source, which is usually lost during an emergency. Such technology will require closer supervision and maintenance, he added.

Tsunami advisory centers will be established in seven nations: Australia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand.

These stations will receive the data transmitted by the seismic instruments and the deep ocean sensors. In the event of a tsunami, the stations would send out an alert to local authorities, who would then commence evacuation procedures set forth by their respective nations.

The funding for constructing the warning system will come primarily from Indian Ocean nations, said Kong. Key countries, such as Australia and India, have committed tens of millions of dollars toward the effort.

"We're doing okay, but I think we could do a lot better and reach more people if there were more funding, more resources, more people trying to provide services," she said.

Officials estimate the system will cost $200 million in equipment and services alone.

Countries around the globe have pledged approximately $3 billion for reconstruction efforts in the Indian Ocean nations affected by the floods. However, the agencies overseeing the construction of the warning system have not...