A tsunami early warning system would have been little use for the thousands of people in the Solomon Islands hit by deadly waves, since they had only minutes to escape, AP quoted an American earthquake expert as saying Tuesday. An Australian official meanwhile acknowledged that a tsunami warning issued for the Queensland coast was undermined by widespread panic and a lack of clear information about whether the waves were actually headed their way. «We got the emergency people together and we were trying to ascertain, 'Is there really a tsunami coming, if so how big is it and how far are we going to need to encourage people to leave the coastline?»' Queensland Premier Peter Beattie told the Seven Network on Tuesday. «We couldn't get that information. ... We didn't know the extent of the problem. We were shooting blind,» Beattie said. Critics said Monday's tsunami, which killed at least 28 people, exposed the limitation of a warning system that supporters have championed as the best way to help avoid a repeat of the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster. That disaster, which left some 230,000 people dead or missing in a dozen countries, prompted the United Nations and six governmental donors, including the United States, to create the US$130 million (¤97 million) Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System which is expected to be operational at the end of 2008. Indonesia, which was hit hardest by that disaster, is in the process of installing dozens of tidal gauges and deep-ocean tsunami monitoring buoys to detect tsunami waves as well as more than 150 seismometers to detect earthquakes. The United Nation's Michael Rottmann, the special coordinator for the tsunami early warning system in Indonesia, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he is confident the system will alert most people within 10 minutes of an undersea temblor. «I think a lot of lives can be saved if you have a warning in less than 10 minutes,» Rottman said, noting that it took 15 minutes for waves from the 2004 quake to reach the coastline of Sumatra. «If you have five minutes and you have a reliable warning, you can get very far. You could go up into a hill or get away from the beach.» The tsunami Monday hit the shores of the Solomon Islands approximately five minutes after the islanders felt the earthquake. Critics of the early warning system are not confident.
