Lack of funds has crippled the creation of a tsunami warning system, leaving earthquake-prone Indonesia without a single working detection buoy, an official said yesterday, a day after a tsunami killed more than 340 people.
No sirens alerted residents in Pangandaran beach, the worst-hit area of Monday's tsunami, after a 7.7 magnitude quake struck 180km offshore in the Indian Ocean.
Edi Prihantoro, an official at the Ministry of Research and Technology that oversees a national warning project, said the southern Java area had no system to warn people of coming waves.
PHOTO: AP
Indonesia deployed two tsunami buoys last year off Sumatra, part of a five-year project to install similar detectors all around the world's largest archipelago.
But when asked how many of them were operational, Prihantoro said: "None."
"We need at least 22 buoys to cover all of Indonesia. We have received two from Germany and they were deployed months ago. However, both of them are damaged now," he said.
Both have since been removed from the sea and one buoy is sitting in a warehouse in west Sumatra awaiting repairs.
The death in a dozen Indian Ocean countries of more than 230,000 people -- more than two-thirds in Indonesia's Aceh Province -- from a huge tsunami in December 2004 prompted international calls for a global warning system.
Indonesia was the worst hit by the 2004 tsunami, and Monday's disaster shows how unprepared the nation remains in dealing with the threat of tsunamis.
However, Science and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman admitted yesterday that the government had received warnings from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and Japan's Meteorological Agency that Monday's quake had the potential to trigger a tsunami -- but it did not attempt to pass them on to threatened communities.
"If it [the tsunami] did not occur, what would have happened?" he said to reporters in Jakarta, without elaborating.
The alerts were sent around 45 minutes before the tsunami struck.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft