Asian countries urged to share data for tsunami warnings

Countries in Asia must improve how they share information on earthquakes and possible tsunamis to build an effective regional disaster warning system, an international tsunami expert said in Malaysia today.

Laura Kong, director of the UN-established International Tsunami Information Centre, said data gathered by various countries could be vital to others in preparing their citizens for events such as the December 2004 tsunami.

“No country must be left behind,” Kong said at the start of a two-day meeting of experts in Kuala Lumpur on tsunami and earthquake preparedness and mitigation plans in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea.

A massive earthquake on December 26, 2004, in the Indian Ocean triggered a tsunami that killed or left missing at least 216,000 people in 12 countries - three-quarters of them in Aceh province on the northern tip of Indonesia’s Sumatra island.

An early tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean – similar to the one used to monitor the Pacific – must be fully owned by all the countries in the region and protect each country’s interests, Kong added.

Kong said her centre was working on these measures in the Indian Ocean with partners the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the World Meteorological Organisation.

Also at the conference, Malaysia said it wants to set aside a separate mobile phone frequency to be used for emergency text messages to warn of impending tsunami.

The government plans to disseminate tsunami warnings through TV broadcasts, and is in talks with telcos to dedicate a separate frequency for emergency cell phone messaging, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Jamaluddin Jarjis said.

“We must leave no stone unturned … to get the most accurate, in time data and to relate that data to everybody,” Jamaluddin said.

Malaysia has positioned two buoys – one in Indonesian waters near the island of Sumatra and another in the South China Sea between mainland Malaysia and Borneo island – to give at least an hour’s warning to locals of any approaching tsunami, he said.