White House issues tsunami disaster plan

Hoping to protect US shores from being hammered by a tsunami, the White House issued a national plan today for increased earthquake and volcano monitoring systems, deep ocean buoys and other high-tech means of alerting oceanside communities.

President George Bush and Congress requested the tsunami plan after an earthquake on December 26, 2004, caused a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean. It killed or left missing more than 220,000 people in 11 Indian Ocean countries, and “demonstrated international vulnerability,” said John Marburger, Bush’s top science adviser.