U.S. launches 16.6-million-dollar tsunami-warning-support programme

Bangkok (dpa) - The United States on Wednesday launched a two-year, 16.6-million-dollar programme to help set up a tsunami-warning system for countries on the Indian Ocean where about 220,000 people lost the lives in the December 26 tidal waves.

"There was a broad agreement that a warning system with an approved global framework of warnings would have helped save lives and property,'' Tim Beans, the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID's) regional mission head, said of last year's calamity.

"The U.S. government is responding to this need with a comprehensive programme to share our technical capabilities and experience in facing tsunamis and related hazards in collaboration with the international community,'' he added.

The U.S. programme will draw on the expertise of a number of U.S. agencies, including USAID, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Geological Survey, Trade and Development Agency and Forest Service.

The technical assistance will primarily support tsunami-warning systems already under way in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and the Maldives, the five Asian countries most impacted by the December 26 disaster.

The natural calamity, triggered by a massive earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, caught the Indian Ocean region by surprise and exposed the countries' lack of a tsunami-warning system similar to the one that exists in the Pacific Ocean.

The NOAA, which monitors the Pacific for tsunamis, was set up 50 years ago after a tsunami devastated Hawaii and other islands.

"The tsunami-warning system employed by the U.S. government in the Pacific works,'' Beans said. "The challenge that faces us today is to develop a system that works in the Indian Ocean as effectively as it works in the Pacific.''

The U.S. team envisions establishing an "end-to-end'' warning system with advanced technical links between international, national and regional networks that will get warnings to the endangered communities fast and help save lives in the future, Beans said.

Although some countries are likely to have their systems operational before others, a comprehensive warning system for the region is expected to take at least two years to develop. dpa sk pj ls