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Indonesia began setting up an early warning system in 2005, a year after a 9.2 Richter scale earthquake off Sumatra triggered a tsunami which left over 230,000 dead, 1.8 million displaced and 470,000 homes and buildings destroyed in 13 countries.

It collects data from seismometers, tide gauges, and GPS tracking units mounted on buoys to detect subtle changes in water pressure which could indicate an incoming tsunami, as well as ocean bottom satellite-linked sensors, allowing it theoretically to issue a tsunami warning at a regional level five minutes after an earthquake.

Under the system, a tsunami warning will be issued for any undersea earthquake with a Richter scale magnitude of 7.0 or higher and a depth of less than 70km.

“So far the dissemination of tsunami warnings has used telephone and SMS, and I don't know whether sirens are working,” Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, a geology researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences said. (Image courtesy IRIN)

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