Indigenous Tsunami detection system by India and Sri Lanka more effective than extension of Pacific Ocean Tsunami detection
Sudhir Chadda, Special Correspondent
January 01, 2005

It better late than never. And it is better to take time to get the good one than borrowing an unsuitable one. India and Sri Lanka have decided to build a jointly owned and monitored Tsunami detection system for Indian Ocean in South Asia.

According to sources, it is the right move. The Pacific Ocean Tsunami detection system will not detect future major Tsunamis in South Asia. The detection system needs to be planted and monitored in various parts of Indian Ocean to provide enough early warning systems to the coastal regions of Sri Lanka and India.

The Pacific Ocean Tsunami detection system is suitable for protecting Far East, Japan, Hawaii, Philippines and more. But the one that is needed for India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh is unique and different.

One major failure in India was evident in not utilizing the Web and telephony to make people aware of the natural disasters. Both the Governments vowed to change that. The high technology is not only for the rich, the recent Tsunami proves high-tech can save may lives if used properly without callousness. 

The Sri Lankan President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, has said that Sri Lanka and India have discussed a plan to develop a South Asian tsunami warning system. "This was discussed when the Indian Prime Minister spoke to me.

We are planning to make it a SAARC venture and discuss it at the forthcoming meeting of SAARC," Kumaratunga told a media conference in Colombo on Thursday. She said that the nearest tsunami warning facility was located in Hawaii and the Sri Lankan government had already established contact with that facility. The President said that 24,633 persons had perished in the tsunami in Sri Lanka. 260 foreigners were either dead or missing. Around 2,500 Sri Lankans were injured and 4,600 were missing. "In the prevailing circumstances, the missing could be deemed dead," she said. Around 9,00,000 persons (2,15,000 families) had been displaced, 76,000 houses were fully damaged and 26,000 partially damaged. Refugees were being housed in 770 camps, she said. Some of the bigger camps have 3,000 people. The reconstruction would cost "tens of billions of rupees", the President said. But fortunately, most of the destroyed buildings could be reconstructed without much cost because they were small and simple. 

Even among the hotels, it was only the small ones, which had suffered significant damage or total destruction, Kumaratunga said. The main problem now was sanitation and the danger of diseases spreading in the disaster areas and the refugee camps, as there were few toilets. "I have ordered 100 per cent increase in the number of toilets immediately," she said. About the relief work, the President said that most of the dead bodies had been removed and buried, though new bodies were discovered every day. 

The debris was being cleared. There were enough drinking and bathing water, she said. The heartening thing was that not all parts of a district had been hit by the killer wave. Water, food and other articles were going to the battered areas from other parts of the district, she said. A lot of relief is going from the Sinhala areas into the Tamil-speaking areas. "There were lorries from my home town (Gampaha near Colombo) in Amparai," Kumaratunga said. The people were spontaneously rendering help across ethnic barriers, she noticed. However, the LTTE did not want to let people from outside the North East into its areas to distribute relief. "The LTTE cadres said that the distribution would be done only by them. But we did not allow that," the President said.