Life
November 18, 2005
Indonesia's tsunami early warning system installed
Indonesia has activated the first stage of tsunami early warning system in the water off Sumatra island to avoid a repeat of last year's huge deaths in a quake- triggered tsunami on the island, officials said here Friday.
Indonesian and German scientists have installed two of the 20 equipment since Tuesday some 250 kilometers off the coast western Sumatra and expected to complete the work by Nov. 28, said Director of the Inventory of the Natural Resources of the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology Yusuf Surachman Djadjadihardya.
"The buoys will transmit data about sea tremors and pressure from the ocean sensor device to satellite. We will find out whether the quake triggers tsunami after 15 minutes," Yusuf told Xinhua in telephone.
He said that the data from the satellite then would be transmitted to nearest monitoring station.
The earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale off Sumatra on Dec. 26 last year unleashed the most devastating tsunami on record.
Over 230,000 people in scores of Indian Ocean nations were killed by the catastrophe as they had no chance and time to escape from the disaster.
The tsunami also made more than a half million people homeless.
Indonesia's province of Aceh in northern tip of Sumatra island was the worst hit.
Indian Ocean nations plan to meet in August in Perth, Australia, to set up seven regional tsunami warning centers.
Source: Xinhua
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