The government on Monday decided to install seafloor pressure-recording system in the Indian Ocean to be forewarned about tsunamis and to prevent the recurrence of the catastrophe witnessed on Sunday.
Tsunami waves battered India and other Asian countries killing more 24,000 people. An earthquake in the Indian Ocean off Sumatra in Indonesia had triggered the waves.
The pressure-recording system, which will be imported from the US, will also strengthen the country's cyclone warning system, considering the fact that 25 per cent of the world's cyclones are recorded in the Bay of Bengal, Minister of State for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal told reporters in New Delhi.
The new system will be linked to existing devices called data buoys, which record sea surface parametres, he said after a meeting with the officials of his ministry.
"If the country had had such an alert system in place, then we could have warned the coastal areas of the imminent danger and prevented the loss of life," he said.
The government has also decided to join a network of 26 countries that warn each other about changes in sea pressure and the possibility of the onset of high tidal waves caused by earthquakes under sea, Sibal said.
The minister said India will benefit by joining the country. "Indonesia, a member of the network, got information [about the tsunamis], but India did not get," he pointed out.
The government has also decided to start work on the micro-zonation of Delhi, Sibal added.
