Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Progress for Caribbean tsunami early warning system

Thursday, September 14, 2006

by: Stephen Cummings
Caribbean Net News Trinidad and Tobago Correspondent
Email: stephen@caribbeannetnews.com

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad: The United States Government, via its Agency for International Development of Foreign Disaster Assistance, has given the University of the West Indies St Augustine Seismic Research Unit in Trinidad a US$249,680 grant, which will be used to significantly upgrade the Unit's seismic monitoring network.

Stacey Edwards, Education
Officer at the Seismic Research
Unit, University of the West
Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad

Some 250 million people in the Caribbean and adjacent areas stand to benefit from the project aimed at increasing the capacity of the Seismic Research Unit to detect, monitor and provide early warning of tsunamis and related geologic hazards in the region.

The money will also facilitate the development of information sharing policies between earthquake monitoring agencies in the Caribbean, Central America and the northern countries on the South American continent.

Stacey Edwards Education Officer at the Trinidad and Tobago Seismic Research Unit in St Augustine said the US grant was of great importance to the region.

Edwards also spoke about the critical importance of a regional approach in dealing with natural disasters such as tsunamis.

The USAID-funded programme is an 18-month project that is part of a larger programme coordinated by the Caribbean Charter of the Intergovernmental Oceanic Commission to establish a tsunami early warning system for the Caribbean and adjacent areas.

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