Last week, Mauritius hosted the second international coordination meeting for the development of a tsunami warning and mitigation system for the Indian Ocean. The event organized under the auspices of UNESCO?s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), fulfilled some of its objectives but fell short on others. It brought together all 27 countries of the Indian Ocean basin. After the first meeting in Paris, they were meant to present their national focal points to be alerted in the case of a tsunami. About half of the countries, including Mauritius, have done this.

If the IOC hopes that each country will create its own tsunami warning-centre, its overarching ambition is to set up a regional center. This would require an investment of US$12 million. The donor?s forum held at the end of the conference has only raised US$5 million so far. Talks also came up against difficulties on other issues such as the location of the regional center and some technical aspects.

The meeting did lead to some concrete actions, though. Tide-gauge stations in Mauritius and Rodrigues have been upgraded to be tsunami-aware. In the event of a tsunami threat, they will be able to alert countries on the African east coast of the danger. An interim warning system should be in place by October. In his opening address, UNESCO director-general, Koichiro Matsuura, explained that ?the most important part of the work still lies ahead of us, and requires significant engagements from everybody. We need to complete the list of national focal points of the interim system. In addition, we need to move towards the adoption of the resolution in the next IOC assembly whereby the system will become fully established. On that basis, we can move further in defining the different contributions that each of us will have to commit to complete the system, hopefully by December 2006 at the very latest?.