Dieter Schiessl, director of World Weather Watch which is part of the UN's World Meteorological Organisation, said a system purely forecasting tsunamis would not be financially sustainable in the long run.

"If we have to establish a warning infrastructure that will only be tested in very rare occurrences such as tsunamis it is simply inviting operational problems," Schiessl told AFP on the sidelines of a UN conference in the south Indian city of Hyderabad on the aftermath of last year's tsunami.

"We need to have a system that is more frequently used and that means the system should address several natural hazards and the most frequent ones such as tropical storms and flooding," he said.

Most of the 29 Indian Ocean nations did not have an adequate warning system when a massive undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra last December 26 unleashed giant waves, killing 217,000 people in 11 countries.

Since then the Indian Ocean nations pledged rapidly to instal tsunami detection systems with a deep-sea sensor network so those at risk can be warned faster.

But Schiessl said that approach may be too narrow since the region is also prone to cyclones and severe tropical storms.

"What is needed is a multi-hazard system approach. If a country sets up a centre that addresses many natural disaster risk issues, then we believe that centre will be more viable. It will be sustainable as we will have economies of scale as far as the telecommunications infrastructure is concerned," Schiessl said.

"The same (data receiving) stations, sensors, radars, broadband connections and satellites can be used many times. So there will be synergies and sustainability," he said. "That is the key as system components are costly. It can vary according to the size of the country and starts from 100,000 dollars."

According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), 1.8 million dollars is needed to set up telecommunications facilities for issuing tsunami alerts in eight Indian Ocean nations including Bangladesh, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

"The WMO received funds in the order of 1.4 million dollars. That is concentrated on African Indian Ocean rim countries and island nations. We are desperately looking for some money from either the international community or donor countries," Schiessl said.

The integrated and coordinated approach of systems has found favour with many nations, he said.

"To put in place a multi-hazard, multi-purpose (system) requires participation from member nations who can coordinate and contribute with staff and resources," Schiessl said.

Patricio Bernal, assistant director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), echoed Schiessl's views and said the tsunami has prompted different nations to have a rethink.

"The money being spent is not too large. India has an array of (data monitoring) stations and a tsunami warning system is not going to make a dent in their resources. The UN has proposed a multi-hazard approach," Bernal said.

India, Thailand and Indonesia said they were planning to install multi-hazard systems.

P.S. Goel, the top bureaucrat at India's Department of Ocean Development, said the country had already integrated storm forecasts into its interim tsunami early warning system.

"Currently we are focusing on 20 special fishing zones to issue storm and tsunami warnings. It will be increased to 200 shortly," Goel said.

More than 100 scientists, meteorologists and government officials are attending the Hyderabad meeting of a coordination group set up by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission under UNESCO's umbrella in June.

The group's mandate is to establish a fast tsunami warning system.

related report
Warning Systems Set Up Across Asia After Tsunami Disaster
By Griffin Shea
Ton Sai, Thailand (AFP) Dec 16 - Two tsunami warning towers now dot the skyline in the idyllic vacation village of Ton Sai on Thailand's Phi Phi island -- a welcome sight, according to 35-year-old shopowner Fatima Thamnakla.

"If it happens again, it will be better than last time," she tells AFP, pointing out the towers on the tourist beach and near the village mosque.

But she adds matter-of-factly: "We won't know how well the warning system works until it happens again."

When giant waves unleashed by a violent under-sea earthquake crashed onto the shores of 11 Indian Ocean countries last year, many governments had no way to warn the public of the imminent danger, leading to the massive death toll of around 217,000.

Forewarned, many of the victims could have fled to the safety of higher ground when the three-metre-high waves swept inland.

From Indonesia to India, those countries blindsided by the tsunami have since launched efforts to avert a repeat, setting up warning systems, improving cross-border coordination and increasing community awareness.

The national emergency plans being put in place are meant to supplement international efforts led by the United Nations to set up a regional early warning system similar to that already used in the Pacific.

Top scientists and government officials from over 25 nations have been meeting this week in Hyderabad, India, to disucss progress on the regional system which it is hoped will be implemented next year.

Individual countries, meanwhile, have been busy making their own plans.

In mid-November, Indonesia set in motion the initial phase of its early warning system, activating two sets of moored surface buoys off western Sumatra to pick up and transmit data about sea tremors from ocean floor sensors.

The instruments were the first of a total of 15 sets, along with more than 100 seismographs, due to be installed along the coast of the vast archipelago -- the country hardest hit by the December 26, 2004 tragedy.

Information will be conveyed via satellite to a monitoring station in West Sumatra province, from which it will be relayed to the public via mobile text message, e-mail, fax and telephone.

"The more instruments we have, the better it will be," Edi Prihantoro, an official at the Indonesian research and technology ministry, said last month.

Thailand set up the National Disaster Warning Center in May 2005 to deal with both the aftermath of the tsunami and to ward off future catastrophes, and the country's early warning system will soon be in place.

The government is due to install warning towers in Phuket by year's end, with another 32 towers scheduled to be set up along the country's Andaman coast by March.

"I think in terms of preparedness, Thailand is doing extremely well," says Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the World Health Organization's deputy regional director for Southeast Asia.

"In fact, they have the best preparedness plan already. Other countries are also following Thailand's example."

India's federal cabinet in October approved plans to set up a national tsunami alert system in the southern city of Hyderabad, but it is not expected to be fully operational for another two years.

In Sri Lanka, where 31,000 people were killed, the government introduced legislation this year to help manage future disasters, but no warning system has been instituted.

"We had bipartisan support to implement this. We were unprepared for the tsunami and now we have identified what has to be done to mitigate the effects of a disaster," says opposition lawmaker Mahinda Samarasinghe.

Beyond the installation of high-tech sensors, Indian Ocean countries are focusing on community awareness -- a key component of any emergency strategy, as many people simply did not understand the danger posed by the tsunami.

"Community education programs are also critical, not just for the next tsunami but for a variety of hazards," says Eric P. Schwartz, UN deputy special envoy for tsunami recovery.

"It's not just about putting buoys in the water. It's more critical to have a community that can recognize the warning signs and react."

False alarms are another concern. On March 29, after another underwater earthquake off Indonesia, the Indian government warned people in its southern coastal areas that a tsunami might hit again, causing widespread panic.

In Ton Sai, Fatima says she is pleased with her government's efforts, but also noted that she was no longer afraid of the killer waves.

"It won't happen again for a long time. My old relatives say they had seen a tsunami before, but it wasn't nearly as big as this one. Last time it was just like a flash of water in the village -- there wasn't much damage," she says.

But some expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of warning systems, like 31-year-old Erna Wati, a mother of four living in the Indonesian village of Gado, in devastated Aceh province.

"We heard from the newspaper that a warning system is coming, but we've only so far heard warnings from fortune tellers -- and we don't believe them," she says.

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