Part 1 of tsunami system completed

JAKARTA, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Indonesia has completed the first part of a three-part system to provide rapid early warnings against tsunamis, officials said.

The first part determines earthquake sizes and scopes "and the potential for tsunami generation," said Fauzi, head of the Tsunami and Earthquake Center in Jakarta.

The second part, scheduled for completion in April, monitors the sea level. And the third part, projected to be in place by 2011, will include computer modeling of tsunamis, said Fauzi, who goes by only one name like many people in Indonesia.

His update comes five years after a 9.1-magnitude undersea earthquake Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a series of devastating tsunamis, killing nearly 230,000 people in 13 countries and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 100 feet high.

The Indian Ocean tsunami was one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were the hardest hit.

Under Indonesia's early-warning system -- supported by the United States, Germany, France and China, along with United Nations agencies -- a tsunami warning is issued for an undersea earthquake with a Richter scale magnitude of 7.0 or higher and a depth of less than 44 miles, the Integrated Regional Information Networks reported.

When earthquake data indicate a potential tsunami, computer predictions of the tsunami's height, volume and force will be generated, as well as its estimated arrival time at different points along Indonesia's coast.

Fauzi said 50 tide gauges were installed along the coasts of Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and the Papua region and 20 more tsunami buoys would be installed across the 17,508-island country in 2010.

He said that despite problems, he was optimistic the system would be ready by 2011.