http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/28/news/nuke.html

Early data on Asian quake went unnoticed in Vienna  
  By Thomas Fuller International Herald Tribune  Wednesday, December 29,
2004 

Early on Sunday morning, powerful computers in a Vienna office building
received seismic data on the earthquake that spawned the devastating
tsunamis across south Asia - information that might have saved lives in the
hours between the quake and the waves hitting the coasts of Sri Lanka, India
and several other countries. . But the data streaming into the computers of
the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization served no purpose
Sunday. . The 300 staff are on vacation until Jan. 4. The organization
itself is still nothing more than a nascent group of seismic experts and
bureaucrats who await signature or ratification on the test ban treaty from
11 more countries before they can officially act. . The organization uses a
vast network of scientific equipment set up to monitor nuclear explosions,
but as fine a measure of nature's force as devised by the humans who have
proven so powerless before it. . A spokeswoman for the organization, Daniela
Rozgonova, said Tuesday that she hoped the world would now see the wider
uses of the seismic sensors. She said equipment maintained by the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization could help scientists
better understand natural disasters. . "The discussion is not finished yet
about how much of the data can be released," Rozgonova said. "I suppose that
events like this might speed things up." . Countries like China consider the
data collected by the organization as secretive and have resisted its
dissemination. . More importantly, the United States has still not ratified
the agreement on which the organization is based; India and Pakistan, both
declared nuclear powers, have not even signed it; and North Korea, a country
now suspected of having material for nuclear weapons, is not a party to the
treaty. . Even if such barriers fell, the Vienna-based group would need to
change substantially before it became an instrument to monitor earthquakes.
. On a very basic level, the organization would have to become a 24-hour
operation with continuous staffing through the Christmas and New Year
vacation period. Analysts would have to speed up their processing of data,
which now takes an average of 24 hours, according to Rozgonova. . The
group's officials have long noted that their organization, which has an
annual budget of $100 million, is sitting on equipment that could save
lives. A document produced by the organization in 2002 lays out dozens of
civilian uses for its monitoring devices - everything from alerting
countries to tsunamis to tracking the creation of icebergs and underwater
volcanoes. . The Vienna office receives data from 300 monitoring points
around the globe. The organization checks for changes in seismic activity,
underwater disturbances caused by nuclear devices and particulate matter in
the air. . Phil McFadden, chief scientist of Geoscience Australia, a
government funded organization that monitors earthquakes, said the seismic
information was by far the most useful. . McFadden said organizations in
Australia, Britain and the United States relied on seismic monitors set up
by the Vienna group, but that many countries were not set up to receive the
data. . On Sunday, Geoscience Australia issued an alert in Australia 33
minutes after the earthquake struck saying there was a risk of tsunami,
McFadden said, but there was no one to receive the message in affected
countries.






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