Indonesia plans to buy German tsunami warning system

With money piling up, two German charities are urging donors to direct their contributions to other relief efforts

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04. Februar 2005 F.A.Z. Weekly. After the tsunami ravaged parts of southern Asia in December, national Research Minister Edelgard Bulmahn and other officials launched a sales campaign for a German system that could prevent such deadly devastation from happening again.

The work paid off. Over the weekend, Indonesia, the country that lost more than 108,000 people, said it had decided to purchase the German warning system. “We are confident that we will be able to sign a contract with Indonesia soon,“ said a spokesman for Bulmahn's ministry, Peter Ziegler.
The signing could take place in March at a tsunami conference that will be held in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.

The system is produced by the Geo-Research Center, a government-funded institute in Potsdam, and would cost about €45 million ($58,000). It consists of sensors that have been placed on the ocean floor, and that would report on every below-sea earthquake and tidal wave. The sensors would transmit the information via buoys and satellites to monitoring stations on the coastal areas. Employees in the stations would analyze the data and sound an alarm. Bulmahn has said the warnings could be sent by e-mail and text message to private individuals and hotels.

The United States and Japan run similar systems in the Pacific Ocean, where 90 percent of all tsunamis occur.

Indonesia's research minister, Kusmayanto Kadiman, announced his country's intention to purchase the German warning system at a conference that was held in Bangkok to discuss the aftermath of the tsunami. The head of the German center, Rolf Emmermann, said on Monday that other countries, including Malaysia, could purchase the institute's system as well.

The catastrophe also triggered an unprecedented amount of financial donations by Germans who wanted to assist the millions of stricken people in southern Asia. The total amount of those donations has passed the level of €400 million, according to the German Center for Social Questions. The center is scheduled to release exact figures next week.

But at least two German charitable organizations are urging people to stop giving money to the tsunami relief effort. Caritas International, a Roman Catholic organization, is urging people to direct their money or energy to other areas of the world. Diakonie Catastrophic Aid, which has taken in more than €30 million, began urging people in mid-January to stop donating to the tsunami cause.

“We have already collected so much for relief supplies and reconstruction. We can live well with it,“ a spokeswoman for the group said this week.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer started a trip to Asia on Thursday. At the end of the trip next week, Fischer will travel to the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh, which has become the focal point of German relief operations.

Those efforts include a military field hospital that has been set up on the site of a destroyed medical center. German officials are discussing whether they should turn the rebuilding of the area's health-care system into the centerpiece of the country's development efforts in the region.

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