Pacific alert system worked well in tsunami: UN
Pacific tsunami monitors issued an immediate alert after the major quake that struck off Samoa on Tuesday, but the islands' closeness to the epicentre may have boosted the death toll, the United Nations said yesterday.
"The alert system worked well. The tsunami alert centre in Honolulu (Hawaii) immediately issued a warning to the various countries in the network," said Badaoui Rouhban, director of the section for disaster reduction at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) in Paris.
"After a warning is received, it is up to local authorities to respond to it," he told AFP.
"According to the locality, the alert is then issued by radio, by television, sometimes by ringing church bells or other means... we do not yet have a report as to the response."
Rouhban said even though the tsunami alert was issued from Hawaii "within minutes," the 8.0-magnitude sub-sea quake occurred only about 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the Samoan coastline.
"The speed at which a tsunami moves can be considerable, it can be equivalent to the speed of a plane, at 800 kilometres (500 miles) per hour ... at such speeds, it would have taken only about 20 minutes to reach the coast."
Rouhban added: "There were victims in Samoa partly because of the close geographical distance or possibly because the local alert system was insufficient, didn't work properly or did not have the time."
At least 113 people were killed, according to a still-incomplete toll compiled Wednesday from emergency officials in Samoa and Tonga.
Unesco's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) is overseeing a global warning system for tsunamis, covering the Indian Ocean, Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean, Caribbean and Pacific.
The 26-nation Pacific system is the oldest regional network, dating back to 1965. Its hub is the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii, operated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
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