Tsunamis

Congress is concerned about the possible vulnerability of U.S. coastal areas to tsunamis and the adequacy of early warning for coastal areas. This stems from a December 26, 2004, tsunami that devastated many coastal areas around the northern Indian Ocean, where few tsunami early warning systems had operated. Caused by a strong underwater earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, the tsunami claimed an estimated 220,000 lives. Nations affected by the 2004 tsunami, assisted by other counties, launched a multilateral effort to develop a network for regional tsunami detection and warning of coastal populations around the Indian Ocean, the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System (IOTWS). The UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) leads that international effort. To leverage costs of the IOTWS, IOC members have suggested using extant ocean observation and monitoring networks, data collection systems, marine buoys and tide gage networks, and global telecommunications systems. This may pose the technical challenge of standardizing communication protocols to ensure interoperability of international systems. Also, supporters of the IOTWS consider a fully deployed U.S. network an important component of a future global tsunami warning capability.