By Liang Qiwen (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-06 09:31

GUANGZHOU: South China's Guangdong province is establishing an oceanic earthquake surveillance system to forecast tsunamis at least an hour before they surge ashore, according to Huang Jiantao, director of the Guangdong Provincial Earthquake Administration.

An accurate prediction system will allow authorities to issue timely warnings and save lives in the event of a shore-bound tsunami.

"We have invested dozens of millions of yuan into the surveillance system project," he said yesterday during the third Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Earthquake Technology Forum. "A complete system is expected to be finished within three years."

Huang said forecasting tsunamis accurately was very difficult because the ocean is usually calm before they strike land.

The killer waves, which claimed 230,000 lives in South and South East Asia in 2004, are normally caused by earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 7 on the Richter scale.

"Such strong earthquakes rarely occur on land, but they are commonly seen on the seabed," Huang said. "Therefore, it is extremely important to accurately forecast ocean earthquakes."

No tsunami has ever occurred in the ocean near Guangdong, but the southern part of the province lies on an earthquake belt running through Southeast Asia.

Cities like Yangjiang and Heyuan have suffered earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 7.0, prompting Guangdong to take the lead on earthquake surveillance.

Now Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao are coordinating more closely and regularly exchanging surveillance results.

More than 40 earthquake experts attended this year's two-day event, which ended yesterday in Guangzhou.

In the past four years, Guangdong has assisted Hong Kong and Macao on a number of projects which required advanced anti-earthquake technologies, such as earthquake evaluations for Hong Kong's airport and Tsing Ma Bridge.