The United States will expand its tsunami warning system beyond the Pacific Ocean to include the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, the White House said on Friday.
Three weeks after an earthquake and tsunami killed more than 160,000 people in countries bordering the Indian Ocean, U.S. officials unveiled a plan to spend $37.5 million over two years to set up new deep-sea warning systems.
“This plan will enable enhanced monitoring, detection, warning and communications that will protect lives and property in the U.S. and a significant part of the world,” said John Marburger, head of the White House office of science and technology policy.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will deploy 32 new advanced technology deep ocean buoys for a fully operational enhanced warning system by mid-2007, said a statement by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The new system will provide the United States with nearly full detection capability for a U.S. coastal tsunami, allowing response within minutes, it said.
The expanded monitoring will provide tsunami warning for regions bordering half of the world’s oceans, it said.
The existing U.S. system in the Pacific provides tsunami warnings for the West Coast of the United States and Canada, as well as Hawaii and 26 nations bordering the Pacific. These include Indonesia and Thailand, which also border the Indian Ocean and were struck by the tsunami on that side.
The United Nations wants to be ready to launch a permanent tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean by June 2006, with the rest of the world to follow a year later.
