Taous Feroukhi, who heads the organisation that oversees the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), said it wanted to marry its system of seismic and hydro-acoustic detectors with a tsunami alert network.

She said she hoped the move would help to rekindle interest in the moribund test ban treaty which has yet to take effect because it has not been ratified by enough countries.

A quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on December 26 triggered huge waves that slammed into coastlines across the Indian Ocean, killing more than 270,000 people.

CTBT monitors detected the quake and immediately alerted both Indonesia and Thailand. Yet critics have accused Indian Ocean countries of failing to act on the information quickly enough and not evacuating people from the coastlines.

Since then, among efforts to prevent a future disaster, the United Nations has said it hopes an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system could be in place by mid-2006.

The Vienna-based CTBT organisation decided March 4 to consider contributing to the tsunami warning system.

Feroukhi said that while the body's main oversight role was a military one, "we hope that the use of our unique network to ... (give an alert on) tsunamis will encourage all the states which aren't part of the treaty or which haven't ratified it to do it."

The CTBT has not yet been ratified by the required number of states for it to take effect, rendering it powerless.

Its system of 165 detectors, eventually to be increased to 321 detectors in 82 nations, "could be important and contribute to prevent tsunami disasters," the director of its international data center Lassina Zerbo told a joint press conference with Feroukhi.

Zerbo said CTBT members would "receive the raw data in near real time" and then it would be up to national bodies to send out alerts.

"We hope to show the usefulness of this (CTBT) organisation, which no one seems to care about," Feroukhi said.

The CTBT, which bans any nuclear blasts for military or civilian purposes, was signed in 1996 by 71 states, including the five main nuclear powers, and now has 173 member states.

The treaty says the 44 nations that had nuclear research or power facilities when it was adopted in 1996 must ratify it in order for it to come into force.

But only 33 have done so, the United States has so far failed to ratify the text, while three key countries -- India, Pakistan and North Korea -- have not even signed the treaty.

Both India and Pakistan have carried out nuclear tests since 1996, while North Korea is threatening to do so.

Meanwhile, the US Congress in May lifted restrictions on research on small nuclear weapons and is threatening to reduce its contribution to the CTBT's preparatory committee.

However, Feroukhi said that her organisation's contribution to any tsunami alert system would help to show its own usefulness.

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