The quake struck late in the morning, at 1049 local time (0349 GMT), while many people were at work or school killing at least 70 people and injuring hundreds. The magnitude 6.3 quake struck on Sumatra island and was felt as far away as neighboring Malaysia and Singapore , where some tall buildings were evacuated. It was followed by several strong aftershocks. The U.S. Geological Survey said the tremor struck 20 miles below Solok . It was followed by several strong aftershocks, one measuring 6.0. Tuesday’s quake was about 660 miles wes t of the country’s capital Jakarta . Pre-Disaster Landsat over the Earthquake-Affected Areas Near Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia UNOSAT_EQ_WSumarta_Pre-Landsat_6March07_lowres_V1.0.jpg (974.4Kb) UNOSAT_EQ_WSumarta_Pre-Landsat_6March07_highres_V1.0.jpeg (2.4MB) Elevation over the Earthquake-Affected Areas Surrounding Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia UNOSAT_EQ_WSumarta_Elevation_6March07_lowres_V1.0.jpg (728.7Kb) UNOSAT_EQ_WSumarta_Elevation_6March07_
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The most recent tsunami created by earthquake, not that far from the Christmas Island and its subsequent tragic disaster onto the Pengandaran coastline triggers this email to you.
Could you please enlighten me on what is the latest news and information on the establishment of a tsunami warning and mitigation system within Indonesia. If
I am not mistaken, there was a professor from ITB, I simply can not recall his name, mentioned in a forum that Indonesia up to that time has not able to install this system. He did point out factors of why such
failure occured, unfortunately I did not pay attention then. I really appreciate if you could enumerate these factors. and at the same time please inform me what has been done, of course by the government, toward implementing such an
establishment.
February last year at the Tsunami Donor Conference sponsored by ASEAN and took placed in Jakarta, SBY mentioned that "Indonesia and other neighboring countries plan to set up an early warning to prevent natural disasters, including earthquake and tsunamis, this would be a kind of pre-emptive measure."
The Jakarta Post today, Today, July 18th, stressed the need for early tsunami warning and monitoring system. In that piece, it contains two important points that going to have policy implication on the part of the Indonesian government. The first point is "....without an automated system in place to pass the message on to villagers via loudspeakers on beaches or mobile phone text messages, the evacuation of significant numbers of people would have been unlikely." The other point is that " In Sumatra, two buoys have been placed in the ocean containing equipment able to detect whether a tsunami has been triggered and transmit the information to a land station. However, sirens on beaches or in villages have yet to be set up there either."
I appreciate if you provide me
certain websites or reference persons so that I could gather more information on this particular issue- installation of early tsunami and monitoring system.
If I am not mistaken the Japanese society enjoys and benefits from a such very solid advanced warning
system that tremendously improve their chance to minimise any casualties. Of course such a benefit
should be extended to Indonesian people, and the Indonesian government should takes concrete steps toward such goal.