Tsunami warning system on UN agenda in Rome
Experts began discussions today on setting up a tsunami warning system for the north-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and connected seas.
UN cultural agency Unesco said it set up the Rome conference because no effective early warning system existed, despite past tsunamis in the region.
The agency called for better preparedness following the 9.0-magnitude tsunami that killed or left missing more than 220,000 people in 11 Indian Ocean countries last December.
Academics and officials from geographical and geological institutes from France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal were among those taking part in a two-day conference.
In December 1755 a tsunami destroyed the Portuguese city of Lisbon and many other towns and cities on the Iberian peninsula and in North Africa. Other tsunamis struck in Norway in 1905 and Algeria in 2003.
