As the United Nations is on an active move toward building an early tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean as well as a global network, a lot of challenges remain to be addressed, officials and experts said Wednesday at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction.

An extra session on the establishment of the system was held on the day, with another one scheduled for Thursday.

One of the imperative issues is to establish an international coordination function in a bid to have coherent views between the entities concerned, said the report issued after the session.

Since the Indian Ocean tsunami, many counties and international bodies, like the United States, Japan, Germany, Australia and the United Nations, have made proposals on dealing with tsunami disasters.

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) is to convene in early March in Paris a technical meeting of experts from the interested member countries and relevant regional and international organizations.

The meeting will seek to harmonize the different early warning initiatives emerging for the Indian Ocean and define the scope and characteristics of a global tsunami warning system.

"We are taking a lead (in establishing the system)," said Patricio A. Bernal, executive secretary of the IOC.

A detailed plan and framework decided at the meeting concerning the establishment of the system would be put forward to relevant governments for sanctions. The IOC assembly could give birth to the system in this July if things go well, according to Bernal.

Smooth cooperation between the international, national and regional is also needed in the efforts. A warning of tsunami issued by an international organization needs to be disseminated quickly and accurately all the way down to the population of the countries or regions in danger. Likewise, the gathering and sharing of information needs collective efforts from different nations as well as different regions in a nation. "It must be an international program, but with national participation," said Bernal.

Experts also agreed that efforts should be made to push up the public awareness of and the preparedness for tsunami.

"When you do have a warning system working, you do have to have the awareness and preparedness in place, because if you do issue a warning without the awareness and the preparedness in place, you will get no reaction, or you may even worsen the reaction of the population," Bernal said.

Even if the Indian Ocean region finally has a early warning system in place, the long-term sustainability is also to be a concern.

Because the tsunami occurs rarely in some areas, and efforts should be made to persuade decision makers to sustain a system for decades. To realize a sustainable tsunami early warning system, the idea is to make it more integrated with other ocean-related hazard warning systems, said Peter Pissierssens, head of the Ocean Services IOC.

Unlike the situation in the Pacific Ocean region where countries with strong economic power, like the United States, Japan and Australia, stood as solid funding sources, the Indian Ocean rim countries are mostly developing countries. They may lose interest in or can not afford to keep a warning system running in the long run.

To deploy it requires about 13 million US dollars, while the operational cost stands at about 4 million to 5 million dollars a year, according to Peter Schindele, an expert working with the Pacific tsunami alert system.

In a few month ahead, the interest in the tsunami may fade away. So it is important to ensure to build a solid foundation now first of all with Indian Ocean nations, said Peter Pissierssens.

"We need to empower the countries. We need to convince them that this is something very important. We need to link it other hazards. So they build solid national early warning systems for tsunamis and for other hazards," the head of the Ocean Services IOC said.

Experts said there is no technical obstacles to set up such a system in the Indian Ocean as equipment and technology employed in the Pacific Ocean's system, which have had been developed for 40 years, can also make contribution in the Indian Ocean.

All that technology used in the Pacific Ocean, like seismic and sea level observation systems, is "entirely transferable" to the other part of the world, including in the Indian Ocean, said Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center.

A global tsunami alert system was also eyed at the session. Experts hope to have it come into play by June 2007.
 
(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2005)