A few hours ago the tsunami summit decided to continue with the plans to build an early warning system for the Indian Ocean which allowed to detect tsunamis that are miles out at sea. The project would cost an enormous sum, but it could also save many lives in a future situation. World leaders have pledged to offer their support to make this a success.

1. Seismic observatories in the region detect an earthquake and send data to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.
2. If the earthquake is in the Pacific basin and above 7.5 on Richter scale, an initial "Tsunami watch" alert is sent out.
3. Data from monitoring stations deep on the seabed near the the earthquake's epicentre is checked for signs of a tsunami.
4. If a tsunami is detected, full warnings are sent out via national systems which have been set up in several countries.

The effectiveness of this system mainly depends on communication and adequate emergency response services in remote areas. Without such resources which could reach all parts of the land, specially coastal areas, there would be no use of a system that generates the warning.

There's no point in spending all the money on a fancy monitoring and a fancy analysis system unless we can make sure the infrastructure for the broadcast system is there. That's going to require a lot of work. If it's a tsunami, you've got to get it down to the last Joe on the beach. This is the stuff that is really very hard.

The 12/26 tsunami had a smiliar story. It's said that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii picked up the seismic activity, and made the call to the Asian region. But sadly emergency response did not exist. So what's really needed in the Indian Ocean? A new detection system or an emergence response unit? Seems like no ones willing to take any risk. The detection system will comprise of high-tech equipment, but the forms of alerting are yet to be known. So far they have got one on the list: Sirens!