Wednesday, Mar 30, 2005
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IN AGONY: Some of the patients evacuated from a hospital after a strong earthquake, receive intravenous drip at its parking lot in Medan, northern Sumatra, on Monday.
GENEVA, MARCH 29. The initial parts of an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system that is not due until mid-2006 worked to alert Governments in the region to the latest earthquake and helped sound the all-clear ending fears of a killer wave, a U.N. specialist said today. Indian Ocean nations agreed in a Paris meeting earlier this month to establish the full warning system next year, but first steps were already under way, said John Harding of the United Nations' International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. Tuesday was the deadline for Governments to provide contact details to Japanese and U.S. warning centres, and many had already provided the necessary details, Mr. Harding said. The contacts made it possible for word of the 8.7 magnitude earthquake off Sumatra late last night to be relayed ``to authorities in the region through a number of networks,'' he said. Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka then ordered a protective evacuation, Mr. Harding said. Two sea-level gauges in Sri Lanka and off Australia more than 1,600 km from the epicentre of the quake enabled experts to call off the tsunami warning, he added.
Mini-tsunami detected
China's recently-established tsunami monitoring station in its southernmost city Sanya detected tiny waves of about four to five centimetres in height early today after the earthquake struck off Sumatra, state media reported. It proved that the earthquake had evoked a ``very small'' tsunami with ``a very little impact,'' a chief forecaster with the State Oceanic Administration, Ye Lin said. China established an automatic early-warning tsunamis system after the December 26 tragedy which started operation on February 8 this year and thus far has received more than 20 alerts from the Pacific tsunami warning centre. ``The system can tell us what kind of influence a tsunami has on China's sea areas,'' Mr. Ye said. Meanwhile, Australia, Japan and Singapore on Tuesday prepared to redeploy troops in Indonesia to help with that country's latest earthquake disaster.
Another quake predicted
The huge undersea earthquake was a result of increased geological stress caused by last December's mega-quake that sent a devastating tsunami across southern Asia, seismologists said. And they warned of a third big earthquake in the area sooner or later. Last night's 8.7-magnitude shock was centred 160 km southeast of the epicentre of the 9-magnitude December 26 quake off Sumatra's northern tip. Seismologists had been warning of a second earthquake off Sumatra ever siince last December's quake. — AP/Reuters
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