UN pushes ahead with plans for global tsunami early warning system

The United Nations plans to have an Indian Ocean tsunami early warning system, which experts say could have saved tens of thousands of lives in the current disaster, up and running by June 2006, with a global system operational a year after that.

The Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koïchiro Matsuura, said assessment missions are already being undertaken to concerned countries as a step towards the creation of the Indian Ocean component, the first regional segment of the global system.

“There must be an early warning system,” UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland told a daily news briefing today in New York of the mechanism to alert countries and threatened populations of a tsunami’s approach up to hours before it actually strikes.

“It is mind-boggling to think that for hours the tsunami was on its way, the seismic people knew it was on its way, millions people were on or close to those beaches. As the first tidal wave receded, thousands of children ran down to collect fish which was on shore because the tidal withdrew,” he said of the 26 December disaster that ravaged a dozen countries.

“All the animals by instinct fled. The children ran to the waves, and they were nearly all of them taken and killed or are missing. Of course we need a system of early warning, of surveillance, preparedness, social organization.”

Such a mechanism would have given coastal populations enough time to reach higher ground before the gigantic waves struck on 26 December – in many countries hours after the initial earthquake that spawned the tsunami.

Speaking at a news conference yesterday in Mauritius at the International Meeting to Review the Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, Mr. Matsuura estimated the cost of scientific infrastructure for the Indian Ocean system consisting of a regional and national centres at about $30 million, with an additional of $1 million to $2 million for annual maintenance.

UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) initiated in 1968 a successful International Tsunami Warning System for the Pacific, presently the only one in the world, and this “has undoubtedly saved many lives over the past four decades of its existence,” he said. “We have learned some important lessons and gained much experience in the Pacific, and this will prove invaluable in setting up a new global system.”

Two meetings of experts will be held in March to analyze the recent earthquake and tsunami and to look at exactly what will be required for a global alert system. They will also seek to harmonize all international efforts being made towards the establishment of the Indian Ocean early warning system.

Mr. Matsuura stressed the importance of collaboration in such a project and said UNESCO would be working closely with key institutional partners like the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and other international partners, donor countries and national authorities.

“The role of the latter is crucial in the success of any alert system,” he added. “It is up to the authorities in individual countries to set up the communication networks needed to ensure that information on tsunami, and other natural disasters, reaches threatened populations. They are also responsible for education and awareness-raising programmes to inform people about the actions they can take to save lives and limit the damage of such disasters.”