Australian officials were aware almost immediately of the abnormally large quake and predicted from its size and location that there was a chance the country's east coast could be hit by a tsunami.

Beaches along Australia's east coast were quickly closed and ferries crossing Sydney Harbour stopped as officials anxiously awaited news.

But it took hours for any more information about a possible tidal wave to reach Australian cities because of a lack of equipment and expertise in the South Pacific, experts said.

"This was frightening in a sense that we were warned there could've been a tsunami, we were trying to work out the magnitude of it but we were shooting blind, and I don't believe this is good enough," said Peter Beattie, Premier of Queensland state.

The South Pacific needed more equipment, such as tide gauges and satellite-linked buoys, to measure ocean movement so that Australia and its neighbours could be better warned of tsunamis, expert Gary Gibson said.

"It was so frustrating for the first few hours not to have confirmation (of a tsunami)," said Gibson, chairman of the executive committee of the US-based International Seismological Centre.

"The Pacific has the best tsunami warning system in the world. The South Pacific is not quite as well set up. You can be waiting a long time to get information."

Gibson said Australia's warning system had been upgraded following the devastating 2004 tsunami, caused by a massive undersea quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

That tsunami killed 200,000 people around the Indian Ocean shoreline.

"It's a matter of priorities and the priority has been given to the northwest coast because of the possibility of big earthquakes from Indonesia," he said.

The Australian government has said it would review its system after the Solomons tsunami, although its early warning system was on track to be fully operational in 2009. By that time, officials should be able to make more accurate predictions of tsunamis.

Monday's information vacuum led to some overreaction in Australia, particularly in the northeastern city of Cairns, where hundreds of residents attempted to drive to higher ground, causing gridlock on low-lying roads.

That response, said Gibson, "was not based on reality."

Kevin McCue, director of the Australian Seismological Centre, said Australian officials should have used historical data to predict that any tsunami from the Solomons quake would not present a danger here.

"We should have known we weren't going to have a damaging tsunami," he told AFP. "I think it was just an overreaction to Sumatra."

He said Australia should help neighbours such as Papua New Guinea improve their warning systems by giving them equipment and personnel.

But he said no amount of money would help those most at risk escape a tsunami as there was only five minutes after a quake to seek higher ground.

"They don't have telephones, they don't have power. There's no way of alerting people on the ground in the most risky areas," he said.

David Walsh, of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii, said there was a large network of water gauges in the South Pacific which were used to determine the risk of tsunamis.

But he noted: "Many of the gauges are inoperable on any given day."

earlier related report
Pacific still lacking in tsunami alert systems: expert
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) April 3 - Pacific nations still lack sufficient systems to warn them of an impending tsunami, a UN expert warned Tuesday a day after killer waves struck the Solomon Islands following an earthquake.

Laura Kong, director of the Hawaii-based International Tsunami Information Centre, said millions of dollars in funding since a devastating December 2004 tsunami had flowed mostly to Indian Ocean nations.

An estimated 230,000 were killed in that tsunami, which was triggered by a massive undersea earthquake off Sumatra.

Monday's disaster in the western Solomons left at least 24 dead, according to officials there, but many are missing and thousands are homeless following the 8.0-magnitude quake and ensuing tsunami.

"We would like to see more systems in the Pacific. It is probably where it (the next earthquake) is going to happen," Kong told AFP.

"Most of the money from donor countries are being spent in the Indian Ocean. We have not seen donors' support for the Pacific."

Kong was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day gathering here of disaster and meteorology experts from 27 Pacific nations to discuss warning systems and better ways of alerting the public.

She said many nations were now better prepared to respond to such threats, in particular in Southeast Asia following the 2004 disaster.

"Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia are better prepared now. The locals now know what tsunami is," Kong said.

"In the last two years, some 40 places in the Indian Ocean have sea level monitoring systems in place from zero previously," she added.

Kong said the challenge faced by most countries was finding enough funds to maintain warning and monitoring systems initially funded by donor nations.

"They need to plan and budget for maintenance of the equipment to keep the systems going," she said.

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