Wall Street

by Nick Simeone

Online Stock Market Trading Spurred on by last month's tsunami across the Indian Ocean, the United States is expanding its own tsunami warning system to protect all of its own coastlines.If you would like to receive late breaking news on issues covered by AXcess News then you need to subscribe. By joining, you can stay ahead of the pack and receive the latest news in your email in-box first.Print This Page

In Seychelles, which would likely be hit by a tsunami before Kenya, authorities said they had downgraded a tsunami warning because the window for a strike had passed. In India, officials said nothing was felt in the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, some of which are just 150 miles north of Sumatra. The Indian government issued a tsunami alert for the islands, and officials told authorities to take precautions, said Dharam Pal, the regional relief commissioner. In Australia, the tsunami warning was lifted after only small rises in the sea level were measured at Cocos Island and the Christmas Islands. But officials warned residents to stay away from the ocean, warning that dangerous waves and currents could still affect beaches, harbors and rivers for several hours.

Stock Investing Course Jan 15, 2005 (AXcess News) Washington - Spurred on by last month's tsunami across the Indian Ocean, the United States is expanding its own tsunami warning system to protect all of its own coastlines. The plan would go beyond the existing tsunami detection system now being used to warn of giant waves in the Pacific Ocean.The last time the United States was hit by a tsunami was in 1964 when a magnitude nine earthquake struck Alaska, sending waves crashing into shorelines there, as well as in Hawaii and along the west coast. In Alaska alone, the quake and tsunami killed more than 100 people.U.S. government scientists say last month's tsunami that claimed some 160,000 lives prompted them to accelerate the expansion of the existing tsunami warning system for the United States.

10 p.m. ( 10 a.m. EDT), the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was centered 80 miles southwest of Sumatra island at a depth of 18.6 miles. "Earthquakes of this size have the potential to generate a widespread destructive tsunami that can affect coastlines across the entire Indian Ocean Basin, " the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said, warning that waves could hit Indonesia and Australia within an hour, and Sri Lanka and India within three hours.

Stock Market Game "The new system will provide the U.S. nearly 100 percent detection capability for the coasts, allowing alert within minutes and in some cases within seconds of tsunami formation," says Bush administration science adviser John Marburger.He adds that the government will spend $37 million over the next two years to expand the nation's current tsunami warning system beyond the Pacific to include the Atlantic and Caribbean coasts as well. Half the population of the United States lives in coastal areas.AdvertisementThe enhanced monitoring, detection and warning system could eventually be further expanded to include countries along the Indian Ocean rim which lack the kind of warning system that could have given people there time to get to higher ground before the December 26 disaster.

It lifted the alert for Indonesia about two hours later, saying there was no longer a potential for a destructive wave. An official with Thailand's National Disaster Warning Center, Passakorn Khanthasap, said it had sent cell phone text messages alerting hundreds of officials in six southern provinces. The Kenyan and Tanzanian governments issued tsunami warnings and told people to leave beaches. Residents of the coastal city of Mombasa crowded into buses and left sprawling public beaches after hearing the warning over the radio. Police were moving people off the coastline.

Stock Investing Game "What made this event even more tragic was the fact that it might have been prevented," he notes.

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Journal Prime Rate Street Wall But officials concede, having a warning system in place would not have done much good if local governments were unable to quickly get warnings out to communities in the path of the killer wave.

Stock Market News Source: Voice of America

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