Indonesia's tsunami warning system has been inactive since 2012.
Indonesia's tsunami warning buoy system has not been operational since 2012, an official said on December 24, just two days after a tsunami hit the islands of Sumatra and Java in the Sunda Strait, killing nearly 300 people.
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| Lack of early tsunami warning meant people on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java were unable to evacuate in time. Photo: New York Times |
In a series of comments on Twitter today, Indonesian National Disaster Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said: "Acts of sabotage, lack of budget and technical errors have caused the tsunami warning buoy system to fail." The official confirmed that on the night the tsunami hit Sumatra and Java islands, no tsunami warning system was operational.
"There was no tsunami warning system on the night of December 22, 2018. This prevented local authorities from detecting the tsunami early. Tsunami warning signs could not be recorded, so people did not have time to evacuate," Mr. Nugroho wrote.
According to Mr. Nugroho, Indonesia still does not have a tsunami warning system that can detect undersea landslides and underwater volcanic eruptions.
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| Graphic simulation of a tsunami caused by the Anak Krakatau volcano. Graphic: Alex Cox/Dailymail |
Currently, Indonesia has only one early warning system for tsunamis caused by earthquakes. It was installed in 2008, a few years after the 9.3 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Banda Aceh in 2004. The twin disasters in the Indian Ocean killed 168,000 Indonesians and nearly 250,000 in surrounding areas.
Mr. Nugroho said: "There are 127 volcanoes, or 13% of the world's volcanoes, concentrated in Indonesia. Some of those volcanoes are under the sea or on small islands, so when they erupt, they can cause tsunamis. According to him, that is the challenge for government agencies and research institutes to develop early warning systems.
On the evening of December 22, a powerful tsunami struck the Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java, just over 20 minutes after a volcano erupted. This tsunami disaster has killed at least 281 people and injured more than 1,000. The death toll is expected to rise further.
The reason for the high number of casualties is that the people in the islands did not receive any warning of an impending tsunami. Local authorities initially believed that the wave was not a tsunami but just a tidal surge, so people should not worry too much.
Experts say this tsunami may have been caused by the eruption of the Anak Krakatoa volcano, which led to the "partial collapse" of the Anak Krakatau mountain into the sea and caused a large wave.
