Indonesia's Tsunami Warning System Failed Because of Vandalism

(Oct. 27) -- Part of Indonesia's tsunami warning system failed on Monday because two buoys off the Mentawai islands had been vandalized and were not working, the BBC reports. Residents on the islands reported that they did not hear a warning before Monday's tsunami, a 10-foot wave that killed at least 272 people. About 500 people are still missing.

"We don't say they are broken down, but they were vandalized and the equipment is very expensive," Ridwan Jamaluddin, of the Indonesian Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, told the BBC. "It cost us five billion rupiah each (£353,000; $560,000)."

The buoys are essential to the country's tsunami early-warning center, which was put in place after the devastating 2004 tsunami that caused more than 226,000 deaths globally, more than half of which occurred in Indonesia's Aceh province. The devices sit on the water and measure changes in sea level and motion. In coordination with tide gauges on land, the information is then transferred to ground stations by satellite. The system is meant to give people enough time to reach high ground before a wave hits.

Indonesia's early-warning system was meant to be completed by this year but is still a work in progress, Tiziana Bonapace, a U.N. specialist, told the BBC.

"Earthquake and sea-level monitoring systems are in place, but what has proven more difficult is how to get warnings out to remote areas in time," she said. "This remains the weakest link in the system, and unfortunately the tsunami hit one of the farthest outlying islands. Further exacerbating the situation is that buoys do malfunction, and many countries have been experiencing difficulties in this regard."

The Mentawai islands are a 12-hour boat ride away from Sumatra, and rescue workers have struggled to access them in the past two days because of dangerous seas and bad weather, the Wall Street Journal reports. A few helicopters and planes managed to reach the islands with aid, and workers are hoping to deliver more supplies Thursday.

The NASA image below shows the area where the earthquake and pursuant tsunami occurred. Bathymetry, or ocean depths, appear in varying shades of blue. Topographical information appears in shades of brown. The thick black line shows where the fault line lies. The epicenter of Monday's 7.7 earthquake is denoted by the red star, with aftershocks represented by red circles. The bigger the circle, the stronger the aftershock. Pagai Utara, Pagai Selatan and the tiny islands that surround them took the hardest hit from the tsunami.