Red-faced US 'revamping quake review process'

SAN FRANCISCO - Red-faced US scientists are revising earthquake analysis procedures after an inexperienced overnight team failed to quickly review a major earthquake that caused a tsunami killing more than 550 in Indonesia, an official said today.

The United States Geological Survey typically provides very quick, accurate data on earthquakes worldwide, but on Monday took six hours before they gave the accurate 7.7 magnitude for the quake that hit 345 km south of Jakarta.

"Things didn't work quite the way they were supposed to," said Stuart Sipkin, director of the USGS World Data Centre for Seismology in Golden, Colorado. "It is not inaccurate to say we are a little red faced about it. We would have liked to have things work a little bit better."

Because of the remote location of the earthquake, it took 17 minutes for the centre to receive enough data to send out an initial automated alert of a 7.2 magnitude event. A scientist is supposed to review the automated findings manually within 10 minutes, but in the early morning hours between Sunday and Monday in Colorado that did not take place for an hour.

"The only people on staff were some fairly inexperienced analysts," Sipkin told Reuters. "They should have called one of the more experienced analysts."

It was only six hours later when others started arriving during regular business hours that geologists calculated the Indonesia quake was actually a 7.7 - or three times larger in ground motion than a 7.2 and more than five times larger in terms of the amount of energy released.

"They didn't realize they needed help until it was too late," Sipkin said. "The policy now will be if this is an earthquake that looks like it is likely to have casualties either through strong ground shaking or through a tsunami, they need to call a more experienced person."

Round-the-clock monitoring

The United States adopted round-the-clock hours for its USGS geologists after criticism over warnings during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in which 230,000 died. Sipkin said his agency was still experiencing growing pains as it hires new staff to fill that mandate.

USGS spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna said it would be unfair however for foreign officials to blame to United States for the delay in updating the magnitude assessment.

"Underwater earthquakes are a little difficult to categorize. There is no seismometer on the ground 32 km below the sea, so we have to do it based on some pretty complex physics formulas," Hanna said. "The fact that they did not get it right the first time is not surprising."

Charles McCreery, director of Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre based in Hawaii, said he was working that night and personally reviewed their warning of possible tsunami danger that went out 17 minutes after the earthquake.

He said their "tsunami watch" bulletin went to, among others, the Indonesian Bureau of Meteorology and Geophysics, although no sirens alerted southern Java coast residents.

Indonesia has struggled to install its own tsunami warning system and officials said on Wednesday they are seeking to revive its stalled efforts.

- REUTERS