Monday, December 26 2005 15:03 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Hyderabad: An year after the tsunami left a trail of destruction along Andhra Pradesh coast, there is a new hope for people with an interim tsunami warning centre here becoming operational.

While fishermen in coastal villages spread over six districts are rebuilding their lives with enormous resilience, the scientists are stretching every nerve to put in place India's first full-fledged, state-of-the-art Tsunami Early Warning System by September 2007.

At present, the interim centre is operational at Indian National Centre for Oceanic Information Services (INCOIS) here and is capable of issuing an early warning to Government agencies in coastal districts in the event of an undersea earthquake of 6.5 and above magnitude on Richter scale.

Efforts were on to build a permanent system which will be so accurate that it can pin-point the places likely to be inundated and accordingly forewarn people of those areas.

"It will be a comprehensive set-up covering satellite-based communication system, 17 seismic stations, coastal radars and tide gauges," Dr V Sampath, the Director INCOIS, who also heads the early warning centre, said.

The experts are of the opinion that an alert system could have averted many deaths in the tsunami disaster that hit the region last year.

Most of the 29 Indian Ocean nations do not have early tsunami warning system while the Pacific Ocean region has already put in place a comprehensive warning system.

The warning system, being indigenously developed by Indian scientists, will be unique from other countries as it will give warning not only against tsunami but also storm surges.

The interim warning centre has already started working round-the-clock and is receiving data from Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and Japan's Meteorological Agency, besides Indian Meteorological Department.

Outlining a road map for a permanent and integrated Tsunami Warning Centre, Dr Sampath said an entire seismic network would be in place by March 2006. By November 2006, the data buoys, which provide real time data on the ocean will be installed, 50 tide gauges and five coastal radars will also be put in place.

By March 2007, a second set of bottom pressure recorders will be in position.

The crucial work of vulnerability mapping and modelling of the entire coast would be completed by May 2007 and the Centre would become operational by September 2007.