The tsunami warnings that sent thousands of terrified people scurrying to safety after Asia’s latest earthquake showed that three months after the wave tragedy an alert system exists — a haphazard one that leaves much of the population at risk.
After a series of competing offers to build an Indian Ocean warning system in the wake of the December 26 disaster, a United Nations-backed meeting in Paris agreed on March 8 for alerts to remain national priorities, with a goal of an interlinked regional set-up by mid-2006.
But whatever the hardware, the most crucial factor is action on the ground — and this time many knew what to do.
The United States and Japan sent out warnings that waves were coming, local authorities sounded alerts over radio and television and residents ran for their lives.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand, one of the countries that bid unsuccessfully to host a regional tsunami alert system, hailed the way the warnings went out.
”Although our warning system is not yet complete, we managed to alert people in enough time for them to seek safety,” Thaksin said. ”Even 20 minutes meant a lot for them, and now people can feel safer because they know government agencies are monitoring the situation.”
But in Indonesia, the country worst hit both on December 26 and early on Tuesday, the earthquake itself was the only warning of a possible killer wave.
Budi Waluyo of Indonesia’s Meteorological and Geophysics agency said his office faxed messages to the media after the 8,7-magnitude quake struck, relying on television and radio to spread the word.
But he said no other mechanisms were available for most people, particularly in Aceh province that was devastated three months ago.
”The most obvious warning is the tremor itself,” said Waluyo. ”And learning from the Aceh experience, the people’s response was that they immediately fled to higher ground when an earthquake happened, whether or not there was a warning of a possible tsunami, and they wouldn’t return until it was clear that there wouldn’t be a tsunami.”
Indonesia has agreed to install an early warning system from Germany. But the $60-million system will not even begin to be assembled until October and is not due to be functional until 2008.
Immediately after the earthquake on Tuesday, a 3m wave smashed into the Indonesian island of Simeulue off the coast of Sumatra, causing extensive damage, a military official said.
There were no other reports of major wave damage but at least 300 people were confirmed killed by the quake on Nias island next to Simeulue. Vice-President Yusuf Kalla said 1 000 to 2 000 may have been killed.
The quake hit just three days before the US and Japan were set to begin issuing tsunami warnings to Indian Ocean countries as a stopgap measure until a regional system is in place.
”Since we have not reached an agreement on a warning system with them, we decided to fax information as an emergency measure,” said Akira Nagai of the Japan Meteorological Agency.
In the US, officials with the National Weather Service and Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre contacted authorities in Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Mauritius to warn of a possible tsunami soon after the quake hit.
While Indonesia turns to Germany for a warning system, Thailand is building its own, which is slated to be complete by the end of April and will eventually include alerts by cellphone and warning towers on beaches.
India has said it will have an indigenous warning system in place by 2007.
Overnight, Indian radio and television channels broke into normal programming to broadcast a tsunami alert and residents quickly packed up and left coastal areas.
Sri Lanka relied on the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre but found that channels of communication worked well.
”What we found was that despite it being the middle of the night, we could through radio and television get the message to people,” said meteorological department chief PM Jayatilake.
A police officer at Matara on the south coast said he had heard of the tsunami threat from his friends in the media and alerted his force even before an official evacuation order.
Nias island less damaged than first thought
The Indonesian island worst hit by the huge earthquake appears to have suffered less damage than initially estimated, a top government official said on Tuesday.
TB Silalahi, an envoy sent by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to assess the destruction from Monday night’s quake, said after flying over the island of Nias that earlier reports may have overestimated the impact.
”I think the devastation is not as massive as previously reported by local officials because they made their report during the night, while we have had the opportunity to witness the damage from the air,” said Silalahi.
Officials on the island earlier said that at least 80% of its main city, Gunung Sitoli, had been destroyed. Indonesia’s vice-president estimated the death toll as high as 2 000 people, but only 300 deaths have been confirmed.
An AFP reporter who flew with the envoy in the chartered Fokker aircraft as it made a low pass over Gunung Sitoli said damaged buildings with collapsed roofs were clearly visible in the downtown area of the city.
But he said the level of destruction was nowhere near the scale wrought on the coastline of nearby Sumatra’s Aceh province by tsunamis triggered by a magnitude-nine earthquake on December 26 last year.
Silalahi was due to fly on to Nias later on Tuesday, but damage to the island’s main runway meant that he would not proceed there until Wednesday, spending the night in the Sumatra coastal town of Sibolga, 80km north-west of Nias.
A spokesperson from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which has sent teams to both Nias and neighbouring Simeulue island, said Nias appears to be the worst-hit of the two.
”Search and rescue is not a high priority on Simeulue. It does appear that the damage in terms of casualties is much higher on Nias,” said Michele Lipner, adding that there are concerns over the nearby smaller Banyak islands. — Sapa-AFP