Wednesday, August 3 2005 18:00 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Perth (Australia): India was today (Aug 3, 2005) selected to take the lead in implementing a tsunami early warning system for Indian Ocean countries after the devastating December tsunamis that killed more than 200,000 people.

The international warning system, expected to be in place by July 2006, brings together 27 nations and aims to allow them enough time to alert their citizens to incoming tidal waves and avoid a repeat of last year's catastrophe.

"We already have a system that is providing warnings. There are already 25 national centres that have been established in the last three months," said Patricio Bernal, head of the UN's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

"But we will establish a system that will provide information to those centres from the Indian Ocean. This is the goal," he said.

The commission decided to establish a coordinated warning system after the tragedy in December, which was trigged by an undersea earthquake off Indonesia. Many nations did not warn their citizens to try to move to safety.

"On December 26, we didn't have any network that would allow us the confirmation of the presence of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean," Bernal said.

"That is essential. We are working very fast to establish those networks, but those networks will be useless unless they are backed up by very strong national systems," he said.

A 9.3-magnitude quake off Indonesia's Sumatra Island triggered the December tsunami disaster which left at least 217,000 people dead around Indian Ocean shorelines, with Indonesia, India, Thailand and Sri Lanka worst affected.

India will be the warning system's first head, a position that will rotate to other nations every two years.