PADANG, INDONESIA — Indonesian authorities are considering whether to provide funding for a new tsunami warning system after realizing that the old one didn’t work.
Scientists have successfully tested a US$3 million prototype tsunami warning system off the west coast of Sumatra, between the Mentawai islands and the city of Padang, that doesn’t require transmitter buoys, according to a report in the Washington Post. The prototype was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Indonesia installed a multimillion dollar transmitter buoy tsunami warning system after the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of 2004. However, after an earthquake in March last year, the government realized the system was useless because all the buoys had either been vandalized by boat crews or poorly maintained.
In the new system, data travels through sound waves transmitted by undersea seismometers and pressure sensors.
Transmitter buoys are not needed because the sound waves are refracted back into the ocean by warm surface waters to the next node in the network — a distance of up to 30 kilometers.
The system requires a few kilometers of fiber optic cable at its endpoint to connect it to a shore station in the Mentawai islands. The data would then be transmitted by satellite from the shore station to provide tsunami warnings.
The government is now considering if it’s worth spending $112,000 to lay the fiber optic cable — but opinion is divided. Some officials say an earthquake is the only tsunami warning needed, and when a quake hits it’s time to run for higher ground.
Others, however, fear a “crying wolf” effect and worry that too many false tsunami alarms could make people complacent about the prospect of another devastating giant wave.
Scientists have successfully tested a US$3 million prototype tsunami warning system off the west coast of Sumatra, between the Mentawai islands and the city of Padang, that doesn’t require transmitter buoys, according to a report in the Washington Post. The prototype was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Indonesia installed a multimillion dollar transmitter buoy tsunami warning system after the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of 2004. However, after an earthquake in March last year, the government realized the system was useless because all the buoys had either been vandalized by boat crews or poorly maintained.
In the new system, data travels through sound waves transmitted by undersea seismometers and pressure sensors.
Transmitter buoys are not needed because the sound waves are refracted back into the ocean by warm surface waters to the next node in the network — a distance of up to 30 kilometers.
The system requires a few kilometers of fiber optic cable at its endpoint to connect it to a shore station in the Mentawai islands. The data would then be transmitted by satellite from the shore station to provide tsunami warnings.
The government is now considering if it’s worth spending $112,000 to lay the fiber optic cable — but opinion is divided. Some officials say an earthquake is the only tsunami warning needed, and when a quake hits it’s time to run for higher ground.
Others, however, fear a “crying wolf” effect and worry that too many false tsunami alarms could make people complacent about the prospect of another devastating giant wave.
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