Tsunami global alert system on island talks agenda
By Nita Bhalla
Reuters News

PORT LOUIS, Jan 4 (Reuters) - The Indian Ocean tsunami has thrust the creation of a global early warning system onto the agenda of a U.N. conference on the future of vulnerable island nations in Mauritius next week, a senior U.N. official said.

More than 2,000 participants from what the U.N. classifies as "small island developing states" (SIDS) and donor nations are to take part in a four-day meeting from Jan. 10 to discuss the unique challenges islands face.

Faced with issues ranging from natural disasters and climate change to trade losses and threats from HIV/AIDS, the meeting is a forum for 37 island nations to present their problems to the international community and seek help.

"SIDS are extremely vulnerable to all kinds of natural disasters and in view of the enormous damage caused by the tsunami disaster, naturally the Mauritius conference will have that kind of a special focus," Anwarul K. Chowdhury, the meeting's secretary-general, told Reuters.

"I am sure the issue of some kind of global early warning system will be proposed by many states and I am one of the people who believes such an early warning system should be set up immediately," Chowdhury said from New York during a telephone interview late on Monday.

The 150,000 who died around the Indian Ocean, and the many more who lost homes and livelihoods, received no warning of the huge waves triggered by an undersea earthquake on Dec. 26.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii is a model for what the Indian Ocean could do, Chowdhury said.

"If there was such an early warning system in the Indian Ocean it could have prevented such a huge human loss," he said.

Many Indian Ocean countries do have effective cyclone alert systems, which make an ideal foundation, Chowdhury said.

"At least one thing that can be done almost immediately is to connect all the existing warning systems for tsunamis and other natural disasters and create a network so there is an exchange of data and information," he said.