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Caribbean States To Meet On Tsunami Warning System
Delegates from 30 Caribbean states are to meet on the island of Barbados next week to plan the setting-up of a tsunami early warning system, UNESCO said in a statement on Friday. Participants in the three-day meeting, to open on Tuesday, will hammer out an action plan for assessing risks, collecting and sharing data, and managing emergency situations, the UN educational, scientific and cultural body said. The Caribbean system will be linked up to a global tsunami alert system, launched at UNESCO's initiative following the devastation of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed 220,000 lives. A regional warning system is already in place in Pacific Ocean, with others in the pipeline for the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. UNESCO described the creation of a warning system for the Caribbean as a "landmark" for the region's 35 million inhabitants. Tsunami risk factors in the Caribbean include tectonic shifts in North America and landslides on the ocean floor near Puerto Rico, according to UNESCO. The last major Caribbean tsunami, sparked by an earthquake in the Dominican Republic in 1946, claimed 1,800 lives.
Source: Agence France-Presse Related Links TerraDaily Search TerraDaily Subscribe To TerraDaily Express 
A Year On From The Asian Tsunami, Satellites Are Aiding Regional Rebuilding
Paris, France (ESA) Dec 27, 2005The deadly Indian Ocean tsunami that swept across coastlines on 26 December 2004 took the lives of more than 200 000 people. The sheer scale of the catastrophe meant that Earth Observation was vital both for damage assessment and for co-ordinating emergency activities. Through the year that followed, satellite-based maps from ESA's Respond consortium continued to support rebuilding efforts. |
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