Tsunami early warningAll of Indonesia’s Tsunami early warning buoys were inoperable before 7.8 magnitude tremor
At the time of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake which struck off the Indonesian coast on Wednesday night, all of Indonesia’s tsunami early warning buoys were inoperable. The shallow tremor 600 km off Sumatra island did not generate a tsunami, but the incident has raised questions about the effectiveness of the early warning system, which was deployed in the wake of the devastating 2004 tsunami.
Indonesian tsunami early warning buoys, such as these, were inoperable when a 7.8 earthquake occured // Source: cochise.edu
At the time of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake which struck off the Indonesian coast on Wednesday night, all of Indonesia’s tsunami early warning buoys were inoperable.
The shallow tremor 600 km off Sumatra island did not generate a tsunami, but Reuters reports that the incident has raised questions about the effectiveness of the early warning system, which was deployed in the wake of the devastating 2004 tsunami. An official with the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (NDMA) in Indonesia told the Reuters that all twenty-two buoys designed to warn of an impending tsunami were offline.
The buoys are important components of the sophisticated system deployed after more than 200,000 people died in the 2004 disaster.
Indonesia sources say that the buoys, which cost around £1.6 million a year to maintain, have not been operational for at least a year.
“Most of (the buoys) were broken by vandalism, NDMA spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told reporters. “We can easily forget. After the quake in Aceh we wanted to do everything, but by 2015 we don’t have money allocated [to fix them].”
The inoperable buoys contributed to the panic which saw tens of thousands flee their homes, as the tsunami alerts went on much longer than necessary.
