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| Friday, 31 December 2004 |
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India to set up tsunami warning system NEW DELHI, Thursday (Reuters, AFP) India became the first nation stricken by the Indian Ocean tsunami to vow to set up an early warning system, despite the expense and the fact it may not be needed for a generation or longer. As the death toll has risen, so have calls for a warning system and India, which closely monitors other weather trouble like monsoons, said it would now set one up in response. "India will have deep ocean assessment reporting systems to monitor any change in the deep ocean ... data will be fed to a satellite which will provide real-time information on any change in ocean behaviour," Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal told a news conference. He said the system would cost around 1.25 billion rupees ($29 million), an eighth as much as a system the government ruled out earlier because "India is not a Pacific country and it never had a history of tsunami". Australia said it was ready to help any such regional moves. Japan, one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, also announced plans to build a system next year to monitor tsunamis in a wide area of the north and west Pacific currently not covered - including parts of Indonesia - and said this could expand to cover the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile United Nations agency said that it wanted a tidal wave warning system set up in the Indian Ocean by the end of next year. Salvano Briceno, head of the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, reiterated that a system similar to the one in operation for decades in the nearby Pacific Ocean could have allowed thousands of victims to reach safety. "I want to see every coastal country around south Asia and southeast Asia has at least a basic but effective tsunami warning system by this time next year," Briceno said. "There is no reason it cannot be done," he added, saying that governments in the area and technical agencies wanted to act. |
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