CHINA DONATES EARTHQUAKE MONITORING EQUIPMENT TO INDONESIA

Jakarta, April 12 (ANTARA) - The Chinese government here Monday donated 10 digital broadband seismographs to the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).

Vice Administrator of China's Earthquake Administration (CEA) Prof Liu Yuchen and BMKG Secretary Andi Eka Sakya signed a document marking the handing over of the earthquake monitoring devices here.

The donation was part of the two countries' efforts to support the Indonesia-China Digital Seismograph Network (ICDSN).

According to Andi Eka Sakya, the ICDSN cooperation was started on February 28, 2005 following the deadly tsunami in Aceh Province and North Sumatra Province's Nias Island in 2004.

The CEA, he said, had installed the donated digital broadband seismographs and trained Indonesian operators.

The ICDSN system was working well and had become part of Indonesia's early warning system, he said.

The early warning system itself consisted , among other things, of 160 seismometers, 500 accelerometers, 40 global positioning system devices, 80 tide gauges, and 23 buoys, he said.

Andi Eka Sakya further said Indonesia had established a tsunami national center, supported by 10 regional centers.

"Early tsunami warning information can be disseminated among the public within five minutes (after an earthquake with the potential of triggering tsunami-ed.)," he said.

Meanwhile, Professor Liu Yuchen said CEA personnel had installed the equipment and provided their Indonesian counterparts with technical assistance and training.

The two countries' cooperation was expected to strengthen Indonesia's capability to anticipate earthquakes and tsunamis and minimize their impacts.
Indonesia is vulnerable to such natural disasters as earthquakes and tsunami due to its geographical location in the Pacific "ring of fire".

On December 26, 2004, Aceh's provincial capital of Banda Aceh and some other parts of the province were rocked by a powerful earthquake followed by a devastating tsunami.

More than 200,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of others lost their homes.

The deadly tsunami also hit Nias Island (Indonesia) and the coastal areas of such other countries as Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India.