A "plan of action" was agreed in Rome on Thursday among experts and delegations from 23 countries, with the goal of having an initial system operational by December 2007, UNESCO said.

The meeting thrashed out needs for meeting this target, including technical requirements for monitoring earthquakes and sea levels and making the public more aware of tsunami hazards, the statement released late Thursday said.

Tsunamis in the Mediterranean and Northeast Atlantic are less frequent than in the Asia-Pacific, but are still a danger, UNESCO noted.

In 1755, the Portuguese capital of Lisbon was destroyed by a tsunami generated by a powerful earthquake along the Azores-Gibraltar fault, and in 1908, a quake that caused a tsunami and fire claimed 85,000 lives in Messina, Italy.

Other events, some dating back thousands of years, have been triggered by quakes or submarine landslides in areas that range from Norway to the Black Sea.

The regional early-warning system is part of a global tsunami alert and mitigation system being coordinated by UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

Similar systems have already been established in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and a warning system for Caribbean is in the pipeline.