SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia said on Tuesday it had installed a deep ocean tsunami buoy in the Coral Sea off its northeastern coast, boosting tsunami detection in a region which has seen two tsunamis kill more than 2,000 people since 1998.
"The new buoy was deployed in the Coral Sea last week andis now operational," Australian Environment Minister PeterGarrett said in a statement.
"It is monitoring changes in sea levels for signs ofpotential threat from the South Solomon and New Hebridestrenches to the east coast of Australia," Garrett said.
In April 2007, the Solomon Islands were hit by a tsunamithat killed at least 34 people and destroyed up to 2,500 homes.In July 1998, two undersea quakes of magnitude 7.0 createdthree tsunamis that killed at least 2,100 people near the townof Aitape on Papua New Guinea's north coast.
Following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which killed230,000 people, Asian nations installed a series ofsatellite-linked tsunami detection buoys in the Indian Ocean.
Papua New Guinea and the neighbouring Solomon Islands lieon the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire", where volcanicactivity and earthquakes are common. Both are developingnations which rely heavily on Australian aid.
Australia's two Deep ocean Assessment and Reporting ofTsunami (DART) buoys are part of the A$68.9 million (32 millionpounds) Australian Tsunami Warning System progressively beinginstalled around the island continent.
The Coral Sea buoy is the second installed. The first waspositioned off Australia's southern island state of Tasmania.
The buoys consist of a bottom pressure sensor anchored tothe sea floor and a surface buoy. An acoustic link transmitsdata from the bottom sensor to the surface buoy and thensatellite links relay the data to warning centres for analysis.
"The massive devastation caused by the Indian Ocean Tsunamiin 2004 is a stark reminder of the potential for destructionthat can be caused by the sudden movement of the sea floor,"said Garrett.
"The sooner that people can be alerted to the chance of atsunami the greater the likelihood that they can take actionand survive," he said.
(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Alex Richardson)
