Near a coast where thousands were swept to their deaths, government ministers and experts from dozens of countries gathered on Thailand's tsunami-battered Phuket island yesterday to find ways to make Asia less vulnerable to killer waves.
The two-day conference follows a broad endorsement of a tsunami early warning system at a UN gathering in Japan last week. Several nations, including the US and Germany, have drawn up plans for an alert network in the Indian Ocean.
Ministers from around the world and officials from UN agencies held a series of closed meetings yesterday morning to assess the monitoring equipment already in place in southern Asia, whether it could be used for tsunami detection and what additional hardware is needed.
India, Thailand and other countries and agencies made presentations yesterday on their ideas about how the system should be set up, delegates said.
"This is very much about trying to find a clear way ahead," said Terje Skavdal, the regional adviser from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs office in Kobe, Japan.
Funding was expected to be on the agenda. The UN has collected US$8 million in pledges for the system so far, enough to get the project started. Host Thailand on Thursday promised another US$10 million, and was expected to seek donations from other countries in the region.
Phuket, along Thailand's Andaman coast, provides a stark illustration of the need for a warning system. While the area around the conference venue escaped major damage in the Dec. 26 disaster, some delegates were given a tour yesterday of devastated areas nearby.
Experts say scores of lives could have been saved if a warning system -- like one that already provides alerts to 26 nations in the Pacific -- had been in place in the Indian Ocean last month.
The UN has pushed for quick action while the world's attention is focused on the disaster, which killed more than 140,000 people across 11 nations. It has proposed a warning system that would be running in a year and cost US$30 million.
There also was a push by nations to make sure the system is broadened to forecast other much more frequent disasters.
"In our region, we have cyclones that occur every year, torrential rains," said Sateeaved Seebaluck, of Mauritius' Ministry of Environment. "With climate change, we have to face other events that will lead to other disasters."
Southern Asian nations have some monitoring equipment for earthquakes and other natural phenomena, some of it outdated or in disrepair, and officials say it needs to be retooled to detect tsunami.
They are trying to figure out what additional equipment is needed: for example, more seismic stations to quickly register the magnitude of underwater quakes, more ocean monitors to alert officials that a tsunami is coming, and updated communications to get the warnings to coastal residents.
There are still many questions. It is unclear, for instance, where a regional center to collect data, analyze it and issue warnings should be based. Thailand, India, Malaysia and Singapore have all raised their hands.
It is also certain who will take the lead in putting the system together. The UN has cast itself as the chief organizer, but both the US and Germany have proposed plans that would put them at the center of the effort.
The Phuket meeting is one of a series focused on the tsunami. Earlier this week, delegates met in Beijing, China. Further meetings are scheduled in Brussels, Belgium, next month, and in Paris in March.
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