PORT LOUIS, Jan. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- As the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean took up most of the spotlight in a small island conference in Mauritius, United Nations said Tuesday it is to pushfor a global tsunami early warning system during the meeting.

Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), answers reporters' questions at a press conference held Monday on the sidelines of the Mauritius conference. (Xinhua Photo/Yang Lei)

    "Any early warning system, to be truly effective, must therefore be global in scope," Koichiro Matsuura, the director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), was quoted by a press release as saying.

    "Minimizing their (tsunami) impact requires cooperation and collaboration between a rage of partners that go beyond the borders of any one state," Matsuura said.

    The release said UNESCO is to announce a global strategy for a tsunami early warning system at the Mauritius meeting, which features heavily on disaster preparedness and an early warning system in the Indian Ocean, as the tsunami tragedy has made the small islands' vulnerability extremely visible.

    The devastating tsunami, triggered by a huge underground earthquake off Indonesia's Sumatra Island swept through the IndianOcean barely two weeks ago, killing over 150,000 people in South and Southeast Asia, leaving a trail of destruction from Thailand to Somalia. It also puts urgency to the small island meeting, as such disasters challenge the very existence of the small islands.

    Matsuura is to participate in the high level segment of the UN International Meeting to Review the Implementation of the Program of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States on Thursday, discussing the early warning systemissue with delegates.

    "UNESCO helped to start an early warning system in the Pacific in 1968," Sue Williams, UNESCO spokesperson told Xinhua at the meeting on Tuesday.

    "Over the years, UNESCO got a lot of experience and expertise in this area," Williams said, "We have the know-how."

    At a press conference held Monday on the sidelines of the Mauritius conference, Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said his organization is to cooperate with UNESCO in setting up the system.

Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center, says at the press conference that UNESCO is going to provide a "leadership role" in the system, because of its rich experience in this area and coordinating international efforts. (Xinhua Photo/Yang Lei)

    Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center, said in the press conference, UNESCO is going to provide a"leadership role" in the system, because of its rich experience intsunami warning and in coordinating international efforts.

    According to the UN agency, the global warning system "goes farbeyond the installation of seismic equipment to measure and pinpoint earthquakes."

    "Scientifically, the seismic equipment to measure an earthquakethat can produce a tsunami exists ... around the world," Williams said, mentioning the network used by the Non-Proliferation treaty used to measure earthquakes caused by atomic explosions.

    Experts at monitoring sites as far away as Hawaii and Vienna knew immediately after the earthquake took place off the coast of Sumatra on December 26, triggering the devastating tsunami in Indian Ocean.

    However, the missing link in the global chain of such network is the "communication networks, public awareness and national disaster planning that are essential to alert population quickly, to teach people what they can do to help themselves, to rapidly evacuate threatened areas and to look after the immediate needs ofthe wounded or displaced," Matsuura said.

    No warning system was there to alert the Indian Ocean countriesand allow them to take actions, even though scientist elsewhere knew about the tsunami, resulting in huge losses.

    "It (the seismic equipment) is there. It can be used tomorrow, provided the warnings are available," Jarraud said, noting "once we send a warning, it's not the end of the story," and that's whenthe whole emergency response system comes to work.

    "We need to get these warnings to the right people," Jarraud said, "but that's not good enough." He said people need to know what to do when they receive the warning, and that's why people's awareness should be raised. And last but not least, when the people know what to do and where to go, infrastructures such as shelters needed to be built, in order to protect people from the natural hazards.

    UNESCO and the WMO are to present their case in a UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction this month in Kobe, Japan.

    "One of the priorities of ours is to develop an action plan andan implementation plan," Kong said.

    Jarraud said several countries have made pledges to help build the system, noting those who want to participate are looking forward to "proper coordination," not acting on their own, and that's where UNESCO can come in.

    The expert said it is still too early to predict a timetable and cost for such an early warning system, but said every dollar spent on the project can save seven dollars if natural hazard stuck.

    The small island countries, about 40 of them represented in the Mauritius conference, are worried about natural disasters, as someof them were devastated during the tsunami, such as Maldives.

    Delegates are to "seriously reflect on concrete recommendationsregarding the setting up of early warning systems and methods of operating them," said Mauritian Prime Minister Paul Raymond Berenger, who is also the president of the meeting,

    Anwarul Chowdhury, the meeting's secretary general, said the meeting is to coordinate on a global warning system, and "take it to (Japan's) Kobe."

    "Between Mauritius and Kobe, we can establish a network of all existing early warning systems," Chowdhury said. Enditem