Sunday, October 21, 2012

Malaysia does not have tsunami buoy in Indian Ocean near Sumatra

Subsequent to  the unfortunate fatal incident (19/10/2012) of contractor during installation of a tsunami buoy near Pulau Sipadan (offshore Sabah), I googled the previous 'successful' installation of a Malaysian buoy near northern Sumatra in 2009, but I could not find any information of this buoy.

I then gooled the NASA NBDC  web page which has a world map of tsunami buoys installed by many countries (Japan, USA, Chile, India, Australia, Thailand, etc)- see attached map.  OMG. This map does not have that  Malaysian buoy which has been claimed to be successfully installed near northen Sumatra. Malaysia govt or Malaysian Met Depart (agency responsible on the buoy) could not have cited confidentality to avoid listing its buoy on NBDC, because data sharing of tsunami signal is or primary importance to ensure correct signal being detected.

I then thought maybe the Malaysian buoy is faulty and so NBDC has removed this buoy from its map. I clicked on Thailand buoy which has latest data, while few other buoys (such as Australian buoy) do not have data. That mean regardless whether buoy is working or malfunction (temporarily), NBDC  will list the buoys on its web, until and unless the buoy is 'permanently removed'!

SO MALAYSIA THEN DOES NOT HAVE A TSUNAMI BUOY IN INDIAN OCEAN


(Hope the death of the contractor is not in vain)