TSUNAMI IMPACT: Early Warning Takes On Urgency

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Jan 7 2005 (IPS) - Setting up an early warning system for tsunamis is expected to top the agenda at an international meeting on small island developing states taking place in Mauritius from Sunday.

The meeting is expected to approve specific steps towards setting up a warning system mirroring one that has been in place in the Pacific Ocean for more than 50 years.

The Mauritius meeting Jan. 10-14 is likely to seek substantial funds for setting up a system for small island developing states (SIDS) in the Indian Ocean region. These funds would be sought separately from the aid effort for the tsunami-hit regions.

The tsunami disaster Dec. 26 has given a new urgency both to the Mauritius meeting and to the World Conference on Disaster Reduction to take place in Kobe in Japan Jan. 18-22. The Japanese are expected to seek the lead in setting up the new system.

”The issue of an Indian Ocean early warning system for tsunamis must be urgently addressed and we have already been asked by some of the governments in the region to take this forward,” executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme Klaus Toepfer told media representatives in London Thursday.

”The cost of such a system is likely to be high, but not as high as the suffering of the people affected and the economies of the nations concerned,” he said.

World leaders meeting at an aid summit in Indonesian capital Jakarta Thursday pledged in principle to set up an Indian Ocean early warning system which could save lives in the event of another tsunami.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other leaders endorsed a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean similar to the one already in place in the Pacific.

Japan, which has one of the world’s most advanced networks of fibre- optic sensors that can warn of deadly tsunami within two minutes of an earthquake, has already offered technical expertise for the speedy establishment of the warning system, IPS reported from Jakarta.

Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai told the Jakarta summit that ”it is well- proven that 10 minutes of an advanced warning can save hundreds of lives.”

It is not clear when the Pacific warning system was last tested, and how successfully. But the absence of a Pacific tsunami means it still could be effective.

”The quality of the early warning system in the Pacific is not questioned,” Toepfer said. ”Therefore its enlargement to the Indian Ocean is a priority.” And while the cost would be high, ”they would not be so high that it would be an argument to not do it.”

Several governments have requested the assistance of UNEP already to begin work on a feasibility study for an early warning network, UNEP officials said.

The warning network could cover more dangers than just tsunamis, UNEP officials say. A warning system could also provide better and more timely information on stormy sea conditions with better communication systems via radio to larger numbers of people living on coastlines and on small islands.

The early warning systems to be considered could also make use of traditional knowledge, and not just high-technology warning systems, Jagdish Koonjul, Mauritanian ambassador to the UN and chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States told media representatives at the London meeting.

”At some places local people sensed a warning when elephants began to run away,” Koonjul said. ”In the Pacific two years back many people learnt to foresee a disaster by looking at the skies.” Such traditional knowledge could be fed into early warning systems, he said.

What is essential is a ”better method of disseminating information,” Koonjul said. ”People should not have to learn first through CNN.”