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UN Tsunami warning system for Indian Ocean unveiled – massive flaws can repeat the same as in December 2004
27 countries will work together but massive flaws exist in the UN Tsunami system unveiled for Indian Ocean. A United Nations oceans commission agreed on Thursday to work with 27 countries on a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean, with a network of deep-sea sensors and broadcast alerts to prevent a repeat of the disaster in December.
Seismographic networks, and deep-sea ocean pressure sensors will detect undersea earthquakes and broadcast warnings to coastal communities through the region.
"It's a major undertaking," said Patricio Bernal, executive secretary of UNESCO's ocean commission. "You can imagine that a perfectly functioning system is useless unless there is a response capacity in the country involved."
While it a is a technological marvel to bring together the efforts of 27 countries, the flaws in the plan may make it worthless. The biggest problem in Tsunami warning system is educating the masses living near the coastal regions. For example, in December 26 the Tsunami warning came to India, Thailand and Sri Lanka. These Governments for various reasons failed to act in time. In Thailand the Government was worried about the comfort of the Western and Australian guests in case of forced evacuation. In India and Sri Lanka officials were sleeping at night and did not pick up the phone.
Tsunami will happen right now. It will happen when people starts forgetting what happened years later. Tsunami in Indian Ocean is not as frequent as in Japan or other parts of the Pacific Ocean. The biggest flaw in UN plan is the fact they left the education and implementation plans to the Governments of these countries who are really controlled by the rich and care little for poor fishermen and their families living near the oceans.
Individual countries are financing their parts of the system, often with large injections of foreign aid. UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said the total cost was still unclear, because countries'' needs are still being analysed.
UNESCO has set up a committee to oversee the system, with the first meeting set for August. Its secretariat will be based in Perth, Australia.
An interim system to alert the Indian Ocean basin has been in place since after the December disaster. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and the Japanese Meteorological Agency provide information for the interim system.
The oceanographic commission also said it would start work on tsunami warning systems for the Caribbean, the northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and on a global tsunami and ocean-related hazard early warning system.
It did not offer a time frame for when work on the other systems would begin, although it said a meeting for the Mediterranean and Atlantic system would be held in Rome sometime this year. "It will not be easy, it will not be quick, but it will be done," said David Pugh, president of the ocean commission.
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