Tsunami detection system could add crucial minutes of warning
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s tsunami detection system, made up of seafloor sensors that communicate with transmitting buoys on the surface, has been rendered useless by vandals and lack of funding.
Now Indonesian and US scientists say they’ve developed a way to dispense with the expensive buoys that could possibly add crucial extra minutes of warning for vulnerable coastal cities.
The prototype, nearly four years in the making, is designed for detection of so-called near-field tsunamis and has been tested off Padang on the western coast of Sumatra. It awaits a decision on government funding to connect it to disaster agencies on land.
A tsunami triggered by a Dec 26, 2004 earthquake in the Indian Ocean that killed or left missing nearly 230,000 people, a large share in Indonesia, raised the urgency of ensuring communities have the fastest possible warnings.
But when a sizeable earthquake struck near the Mentawai islands, 170km from Padang in March last year, none of the buoys in the area meant to transmit tsunami warnings were working.
A disaster official said all of Indonesia’s 22 buoys, which cost several hundred thousand dollars each and are pricey to operate, were inoperable because of vandalism by boat crews or a lack of funds for maintenance.
That quake didn’t cause a tsunami but there was a chaotic evacuation in Padang, population one million, and other cities, which have at most 30 minutes before tsunami waves hit. Because of lack of information, officials didn’t cancel the tsunami warning for two hours.
“Now we have no buoys in Indonesia. They are all damaged,” said Iyan Turyana, an ocean engineer at BPPT, Indonesia’s Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology. — AP